Hello everyone and welcome to the In Defensive Plants podcast, the official podcast of

Indefensiveplants.com.

What's up? This is your host, Matt. Welcome to the show. How is everyone doing this week?

Are you looking for a good holiday gift for the botany lover in your life?

Well, consider buying a copy of my book, In Defensive Plants, an exploration into the

wonder of plants, some of our customizable merch, or our stickers.

They make great stocking stuffers or just gifts in general for the botany nut in your life,

and it helps keep this show up and running. I couldn't be doing it without everyone that

supports the show financially. So thank you to everyone that's done it and consider doing it if you

haven't. But today is a very special episode because it's a group

of trees that I've been meaning to tackle on this podcast for quite some time and I found the perfect person to do it. We are talking about the Hawthorns, the genus Critigis. And if you grew up trying to identify plants, you picked up, say, a Peterson's guide, you flipped to the Hawthorne section, you go, oh, there's not

really a treatment in here. They just kind of say, well, they're confusing, and here's some general leaf shapes, but good luck. And then you're just kind of set a drift in a sea of botanical confusion. Well, that did not dissuade botanist Ron Lance from taking a deep dive into this genus and truly helping us understand the genus

critigis a lot better and in far more detail. As you're going to hear, Ron got bitten by the

bug early and he hasn't looked back since and he has made major contributions to our understanding

of this genus. Ron is the kind of botanist I absolutely love talking with. He's got so many

great insights and context to put

plants in their place and he's a true believer of to know a plant, you got to grow that plant. But I don't

want to steal any more of his thunder. Let's just jump right into it. Without further ado,

here's my conversation with Ron Lance, it is so exciting to have you on the show today.

I'm really pumped to talk to you about Hawthorns.

But first, let's start off with an introduction. Tell everyone a pumped to talk to you about Hawthorns. But first,

let's start off with an introduction. Tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what it is you do. Well, my name is Ron Lance. I'm kind of an independent research at the moment. In the

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