S02E16 | A Luxury Service Nobody Needs: Dr. Sarah Spaulding on Exporting Plants

Episode 16 — and it's Hortikult's two-year anniversary, so we're celebrating by talking about paperwork.Our guest is Dr. Sarah Spaulding, evolutionary biologist, Tanya's co-chair on the IAS education committee, and the person behind BOTANOPHILE — the export business that gets rare plants from US growers into collections around the world. Sarah explains what that actually involves: monthly USDA inspections where a stranger examines every plant you own for hours, phytosanitary paperwork, group shipments with 400 plants going to 25 people in different countries, and the immutable law that if your box gets stuck in customs it will be during the worst heatwave or the deepest freeze of the year.She also tells us why she calls it "a luxury service that nobody needs," why you will always be somebody's villain no matter how hard you try, what her Instagram handle apparently means to everyone except her, and why sharing plants is basically a love language.Plus in the news: MIT researchers find that rice seeds can "hear" rain and germinate 30–40% faster because of it; the National Herbarium of Ukraine in Kyiv — 2.3 million specimens, 250 years of history, and a critical resource for Australian botany — issues an urgent call for global support; and Jos reluctantly advertises Cultivar Stitch, his new line of embroidered iron-on plant patches (cultivarstitch.com).Then: Hot or Nah with a fluorescent Begonia, a blue-sheened fern, and Alocasia longiloba 'Black Saturn'. And Rate That Weird Plant, featuring boba-shaped succulents, a plant that looks unmistakably like a rabbit vibrator, and a Euphorbia we should probably apologize for.Adult language, adult tangents, adult plants. As always.CONNECTSubstack: ⁠⁠propculture.substack.com⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠instagram.com/prop.culture.podcast⁠Website: ⁠⁠hortikult.com/podcast⁠Connect with us: ⁠⁠propculture@hortikult.com