Welcome back everyone to the epic gardening podcast.

You know when you go to a botanic garden you think okay I get awesome I get to see some

plants I may have never seen I get to learn things that I didn't know but also botanic

gardens keep plants safe in a way that you know you may not be super aware of.

So we have Ari Novi back in the show president CEO of San Diego Botanic Garden and you know

when I was up there Ari at the house plants exhibit I saw an extremely rare plant that's

even well known amongst you know people like myself and in the house plant world the

spirit of Sancti which is cool for me because my last name is a spirit too.

So I feel like at some point I need this plant I don't know if I'm ever going to be able

to get it but that's a story for another time and you guys had an interesting incident

happen with that plant right?

Yeah unfortunately we did have a theft of a piece of that plant and this is a Philodendron

Philodendron spirit of Sancti and it's from Brazil and it's you know very highly endangered

and you know only known to now you know be in one town in one small area and it's an

epiphetic plant that lives on trees way up in the canopy of the forest and it's you know

for some reason has become a real prized you know plant for the you know the kind of specialists

you know house plant community and unfortunately you know a few years ago somebody managed

to get into the Botanic Garden and sneak in and basically cut off a pretty serious piece

of this plant.

We worked with law enforcement we were never able to find enough evidence to you know

really go after somebody that we found some circumstantial evidence but it really highlights

this issue that some plants are valuable enough to collectors that really unsavory and

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