Original subtitles

CHARLIE: Hey guys, Charlie here! You know my sister Kirby.

KIRBY: Hey guys.

CHARLIE: Today, we're in hanging out in Monterey, getting ready to go diving

in the Kelp Forest.

KIRBY: Did you know that kelp grows 1200 times faster than your hair?

CHARLIE: Or that it's a common ingredient in ice cream?

KIRBY: Just a few things you learn as a botanist on the job.

CHARLIE: We'll see you down there!

CHARLIE: It's time for Weird But True!

(theme music plays)

CHARLIE: Earth laughs not with flowers, but with thorns.

KIRBY: Therefore, winged science.

CHARLIE: Forever mourn.

KIRBY: Oh hey guys! CHARLIE: Hey!

Kirby and I are just practicing our lines.

KIRBY: We're super pumped.

CHARLIE: Because this year, the local theater troupe is putting on our favorite play!

A Midsummer Scientist's Dream.

KIRBY: Though she be but a dwarf star, she is fierce!

CHARLIE: So, naturally we had to audition!

KIRBY: Naturally.

CHARLIE: Because I was born to play the role of, Chuck Finemeadow,

the magical plant wielding botanist who can control people's minds,

using his plants!

CHARLIE: Give me your stems if we be friends,

and with this plant we shall make amends!

CASEY: Next.

KIRBY: And I was born to play: Astronaut Ozone, the conniving,

beautiful, conveniently short, Queen of all Science who answers to nobody.

KIRBY: Lord, what fools these spacemen be.

To fan the moonbeam.

CASEY: Boring!

CHARLIE: We had it all planned out.

KIRBY: Or at least we thought we did.

CHARLIE: Turns out that Kirby was cast in the role of

Chuck Finemeadow, the botanist.

KIRBY: And Charles got Houseplant number 3.

CHARLIE: Not even Houseplant number 1. KIRBY: Nope.

CHARLIE: Rehearsals have been so boring.

CASEY: From the top!

CASEY: Moving on.

CHARLIE: All I do is stand there.

KIRBY: All I do is water Charles and I'm just not feeling it.

CHARLIE: What are you talking about Kirb? You got the best role.

KIRBY: I don't know.

Maybe we should call our understudies and just give up this whole acting business.

CHARLIE: No way. We're not quitters.

My understudy is an actual house plant.

So I can be replaced, but this play needs you!

KIRBY: I don't know.

CHARLIE: Kirb, being a magical plant-wielding botanist, is amazing!

KIRBY: What makes you so sure?

CHARLIE: Botanists are rock stars of the science world, Kirb.

KIRBY: No way. CHARLIE: Way!

And I'm gonna tell you all about it, because today, we're unraveling the world of.

BOTH: Extreme botany!

CHARLIE: All right. Plants, plants.

KIRBY: OK, how important can botany really be?

You're just studying something that sits there and never moves.

CHARLIE: Chuck Finemeadow, how can you talk about your discipline in such a way!

KIRBY: Chuck hath doubts on his profession.

CHARLIE: Botany is loads important.

Entire scientific disciplines owe their start to botany.

Just ask this guy.

CHARLIE: Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine.

CHARLIE (off-screen): He wrote a book describing the uses of 300 medicinal plants.

CHARLIE: Got some intestinal parasites?

Just eat some garlic.

Got a fever, just apply some wormwood.

Plants, it's good stuff man.

CHARLIE: So modern medicine started with botany.

Then there's this guy.

Carl Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy.

CHARLIE (off-screen): He wrote a book that describes the system we

use to classify every living thing in the entire world,

and he created it by first classifying plants.

CHARLIE: We'll call this one, Bellis perennis.

Boom!

CHARLIE: So, taxonomy started with botany, too.

But the biggest guy might be this one, Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics.

CHARLIE (off-screen): He discovered, and wrote papers, detailing how traits are

passed down by studying pea plants.

CHARLIE: These pink flowers make pink flowers.

But these white ones make white flowers.

Hmmm, interesting.

CHARLIE: Medicine, taxonomy, genetics, can all be traced back to some

scientist studying plants.

KIRBY: But those are other subjects.

That doesn't mean botany itself is that important.

CHARLIE: That's a good point.

Let me frame it like this: humans have been dependent on plants to stay healthy for

thousands of years.

CHARLIE (off-screen): Ancient Egyptians discovered that the aloe plant could help them

protect their skin.

And today, you can find aloe vera gel in stores everywhere.

Native Americans chewed on willow bark to relieve different body aches.

Willow bark contains salicin, and now it's the active ingredient in aspirin.

CHARLIE (off-screen): One quarter of all prescribed medicines are derived from

just 40 different plants.

And 99% of flowering plants have never been tested.

Imagine what cures and treatments are out there waiting to be discovered.

CHARLIE: So there ya go, Kirb.

Studying plants can save lives.

KIRBY: Yeah, ok, it's important. But it's super boring.

CHARLIE: No way being a botanist can still be pretty exciting.

KIRBY: Whoa. Nice.

CHARLIE: Yeah Kirb, botanists are legit.

Check it out.

All of these movies, are based on true stories, like this one,

it's called "Green Space."

It's about a botanist who works for NASA.

CHARLIE (off-screen): Plant physiologists at NASA are doing super smart research to

learn how to grow plants on other planets!

CHARLIE (off-screen): If humans are gonna live beyond Earth someday,

they'll need to be able to grow plants that produce oxygen and food.

CHARLIE: Ah, this one's supposed to be really good.

KIRBY: "Alabama Cones and the Greenhouse of Gloom."

CHARLIE: Yeah, Alabama, she's an archaeobotanist.

CHARLIE (off-screen): Experts in this field unearth all the ways plants have evolved

throughout history, and they uncover how humans have used plants over time for things

like medicine too.

CHARLIE: Ah, but this one, this has the academy buzzing.

KIRBY: "Pruning The Blue."

Oh! Underwater science?

CHARLIE (off-screen): These scientists go to crazy depths in the name of science!

They spend a lot of time underwater studying and monitoring different sea

plants like seaweed.

KIRBY: Lead botanist sounds like a pretty sweet gig.

Now I just gotta really get into character, you know?

CHARLIE: Well which one of those extreme botanists spoke to you most?

KIRBY: Umm, marine biologist for sure.

CHARLIE: Well in that case, I know exactly where to go.

Guys, it's time to head out, we're going diving.

CHARLIE (off-screen): We're off to Monterey Bay, California.

Home to a huge marine sanctuary for sea life along the Pacific coast and the

perfect place to see extreme botany in action.

CHARLIE: Hey, guys, we made it to Monterey Bay, California.

KIRBY: To experience what it's like to be a marine botanist.

CHARLIE: So that Kirby can immerse herself in her role as Chuck Finemeadow.

KIRBY: Right now we're gonna meet up with Patrick Webster who knows everything

about underwater plants.

KIRBY (off-screen): Patrick works at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and spends much of

his time underwater studying and photographing the plants.

His favorite "weird but true" fact is...

PATRICK: Sea otters use giant kelp as an anchor so they

don't float away during storms.

CHARLIE: Hey Patrick.

PATRICK: Hey how's it going man.

CHARLIE: It's really nice to meet you.

PATRICK: Hey. KIRBY: Hey, I'm Kirby. Nice to meet you.

PATRICK: Hi welcome aboard.

CHARLIE: All right, Kirby doesn't think being a botanist is very interesting.

And, uh, we're here to prove her wrong.

PATRICK: Yeah. We're gonna fix that.

We've got this vibrant kelp forest behind us and we've got a whole bunch of phytoplankton

to take a look at, too.

CHARLIE: Phytoplankton, uh what's that?

PATRICK: Phytoplankton is the base of the marine ecosystem.

So it's eating the sun, and from that, those microscopic plankton are fed on by

microscopic animals, which then just become larger and larger.

All the way up to the largest animals in the world like the blue whales that

visit the Monterey Bay.

PATRICK: Phytoplankton is what makes all that possible.

CHARLIE: Holy cow. KIRBY: That's crazy.

CHARLIE: When you look out here you see all these like leafy things.

PATRICK: Yeah. CHARLIE: Poking out above the surface.

That's the kelp?

PATRICK: Yeah.

So what you're seeing behind me there, that's the canopy of kelp that can grow down

over 70 feet deep, and the full plant can be over 150 feet long.

KIRBY: That's awesome. CHARLIE: Wow.

PATRICK: There's a lot of research that goes on with kelp.

Giant kelp, macrocystis, is the second fastest growing plant in the world.

CHARLIE: Woah! KIRBY: Woah! CHARLIE: Guys!

The second fastest-growing plant in the entire world.

Let's check that out a little more closely.

CHARLIE (off-screen): Your hair grows an average about .02 inches in a day.

But giant sea kelp, this stuff can grow as fast as 24 inches in a day!

That's 12-hundred times faster than your hair!

If your hair grew as fast as kelp, it would grow the length of

a refrigerator every 3 days!

Because it can grow so quickly, people are using it in a lot of products.

There's kelp in yogurt, ice cream, and even salad dressing.

Weird.

CHARLIE: Anything else we should keep an eye out for?

PATRICK: Yeah.

So when we get down to the bottom on the reef, you're gonna see lots of different

red algae that are hanging out.

Different types of brown algae. I'll try to point those out.

CHARLIE: So, we need to look for phytoplankton, giant kelp, which I don't think is gonna

be hard to find, red and brown algae on the bottom?

PATRICK: Yeah. CHARLIE: Okay.

Time for a little bit of marine botany research, you ready to do it?

PATRICK: Let's do it! Sea star high five! CHARLIE: Yeah! Let's roll!

KIRBY: All right. CHARLIE: All right.

CHARLIE (off-screen): Stick around guys.

We're heading 40 feet underwater.

KIRBY (off-screen): Weird but true, the giant water lily is so strong,

you can stand on it while it floats!

CHARLIE (off-screen): I've brought Kirby here to see some extreme botany in action so

she can embrace her role in our upcoming play.

PATRICK: Down there we're going to be surveying the kelp forest.

We're gonna try to spread apart the Kelp plant and count each individual stipe.

PATRICK: A stipe is basically like the trunk of the algae as it goes up to the surface and

depending on how many there are you know how productive it is and how the kelp is doing

out there in the wild.

CHARLIE: So we got one column, we're going to separate 'em, and then count each one.

PATRICK: Count each one, yup, and then we're going to mark it down on our slate move

onto the next one.

CHARLIE: How do you feel, Kirb? Is this what you expected?

KIRBY: I'm pretty excited. CHARLIE: Let's go diving! KIRBY: Let's go.

CHARLIE (off-screen): Our dive starts off in a cloudy layer near the surface,

which is the microscopic plankton.

And then below, it clears up to reveal the giant kelp forest.

CHARLIE: All right guys, we're 40 feet underwater.

CHARLIE: This is the environment that a...

...marine botanist will work down here.

CHARLIE: It's 48 degrees.

CHARLIE: Absolutely freezing!

CHARLIE (off-screen): Before we start our kelp survey, Patrick points out some

awesome creatures that are enjoying the plankton.

PATRICK: Oh, we've got a little sea lion buddy.

CHARLIE (off-screen): And we find algae on the seafloor,

along with other cool sea life.

CHARLIE: Okay guys,

these are the stipes.

They'll go through this full column,

count them, then swim to the next one.

CHARLIE: Kirb, how many you got?

CHARLIE: Let's see.

CHARLIE: Uh, quite a lot.

CHARLIE: Wooo!

CHARLIE: Start to shiver and you lose grip.

KIRBY (off-screen): The kelp survey is super fun, but we need to head

back to the surface.

Whoa! Check these, guys out!

CHARLIE: Guys, there are jellyfish all over the place.

CHARLIE: Oh man!

CHARLIE: Look at all these jellies!

KIRBY: A forest of jellies!

PATRICK: A successful game of dodge jellyfish.

KIRBY: That was crazy!

CHARLIE: What did you think Kirb, huh?

KIRBY: When we first got into the water I was like, "Oh we can't see anything," and then

we passed this murky bit and it opened up into this beautiful kelp forest filled

with light, it was great.

CHARLIE: And it looks like a real forest too.

You have like a real appreciation for like plant life underwater 'cause the

giant columns look like giant trees that you can kind of weave through

and weave around.

KIRBY: Totally. CHARLIE: Yeah, it's just incredible.

CHARLIE: So you feeling better about your roll?

KIRBY: 100%. How are you feeling?

CHARLIE: Ah, I mean I'm just still a houseplant.

So, who knows?

KIRBY: We have one more stop to go to and then I think you'll change your mind.

CHARLIE: Oh yeah? KIRBY: Let's check it out.

CHARLIE: All right guys, I guess we're not done yet.

KIRBY: Do you love flesh eating monsters?

KIRBY: Does observing the culmination of millions of years of evolutionary

progression get you stoked out of your mind?

KIRBY: Then you've come to the right place, California Carnivores.

The largest carnivorous greenhouse in the U.S.

CHARLIE: I don't know, Kirb.

There's no way that being a houseplant is gonna be as cool as being a marine botanist.

We were just scuba diving through jellyfish.

KIRBY: Damon, he's gonna convince you otherwise.

KIRBY (off-screen): Meet Damon Collingsworth.

For three decades, Damon's devoted his life's work to cultivating

all sorts of flesh-eating beauties.

His favorite "weird but true" facts is...

DAMON: Did you know that carnivorous plants evolved

when dinosaurs ruled the earth?

DAMON: Hi.

KIRBY: So we're here because Charles is convinced that plants are boring.

DAMON: We can definitely prove that wrong.

KIRBY (off-screen): Damon's going to show us his top picks that'll have Charlie totally

rethinking his role as houseplant.

DAMON: Here's the Venus flytrap, which is probably the most famous of

all carnivorous plants.

These are the same ones I've had since I was 12 years old.

KIRBY: No way. DAMON: Absolutely. KIRBY: Do they trap flies?

DAMON: Yeah, actually they can trap something as big as a yellow jacket.

Some of the Venus flytraps in here actually catch small frogs.

KIRBY: What? DAMON: Yup.

CHARLIE: No way. DAMON: They can even catch small frogs.

CHARLIE: How big? Like quarter size?

DAMON: Yeah like about that big.

DAMON: So all these little mouths, these traps are actually modified leaves.

Up close you'll see two or three little trigger hairs on either side of the leaf.

KIRBY: Wow.

DAMON: It's not enough just to touch a trigger hair, you have to touch two at the same time

or one twice quickly.

DAMON: We're gonna drop one of these live mealworms in.

KIRBY: Ugh. DAMON: Venus flytraps love to eat live prey.

CHARLIE: They have to eat live prey?

DAMON: They have to eat live prey.

They won't digest it if it's not kicking in there.

CHARLIE: Oh. DAMON: That's how they know they caught something.

KIRBY: Oh man, that's kind of gnarly.

DAMON: So we're gonna do this one right here.

CHARLIE: Ooh! KIRBY: Oh it. DAMON: Escape worm.

KIRBY: That was so fast!

DAMON: I've done this my whole life, I never get sick of seeing it.

KIRBY: That's so cool. CHARLIE: That's crazy. Look at this guy.

KIRBY: Charles! CHARLIE: He's trying. DAMON: Yeah.

KIRBY: Plants are pretty cool right?

CHARLIE: Venus flytraps are pretty cool. I'll give you one.

KIRBY: Ok. CHARLIE: We have one cool plant alright, Kirb?

KIRBY: Ok. DAMON: All right.

KIRBY (off-screen): Next up are sundews, which secrete a liquid that attracts its prey,

keeps it glued to the plant and turns it into a digestible liquid.

CHARLIE: Trap 'em with sticky glue, liquefy 'em, and suck 'em up?

That's uh.

KIRBY: I'm telling you. CHARLIE: That's pretty extreme.

KIRBY (off-screen): And then we meet the bladderwort.

DAMON: See those tiny little black bladder traps on there?

KIRBY: Mhm. CHARLIE: Yeah.

DAMON: Those little bladder traps are what give it its name.

CHARLIE: Like the size of sesame seeds. KIRBY: Yeah.

DAMON: Very small, maybe even smaller than that.

And they're actually one of the fastest things in nature.

DAMON: You can see what the traps look like underneath a microscope.

They're hollow inside, there's a mouth right here, and then there's trigger hairs just

like a Venus flytrap.

Microscopic things will come to this door here and they get sucked in,

in an instant.

CHARLIE: So they'll trigger those hairs.

DAMON: That's right. CHARLIE: And they'll just be like whoosh.

DAMON: That's right. CHARLIE: Suck it right in here.

DAMON: A little door flies open and at one 5,000th of a second whatever was

outside is sucked inside.

DAMON: Half the time it just explodes upon entry.

CHARLIE: Oh, man.

CHARLIE: All right, let's see what they got next.

DAMON: All right. KIRBY: Let's give it a go. DAMON: They're down here.

DAMON: This is an American pitcher plant.

Things fall inside and they can't get out.

KIRBY: Yikes.

DAMON: We call that a pitfall trap.

Sometimes they'll fill up entirely with water and they have a pitcher spout,

that's why we call 'em pitcher plants.

KIRBY: Oh.

DAMON: When it fills up it can topple over dump the water out.

CHARLIE: No. DAMON: And pop back up. KIRBY: That's awesome.

CHARLIE: Like a pour, like it's just pouring itself out.

DAMON: Yeah and I might add that they invented that spout millions of years before

people even thought about putting water in anything.

KIRBY: That's super cool. CHARLIE: These plants. DAMON: I know it, I know it.

CHARLIE: They're figuring it out man.

DAMON: You're probably picking up a theme here. How smart they are.

DAMON: We can actually cut open these pitchers and see how many bugs they caught.

KIRBY: What? CHARLIE: Ah.

DAMON: So we call these pitcher autopsies. CHARLIE: Oh man.

KIRBY: Oh gross. DAMON: It is gross. CHARLIE: That's disgusting.

DAMON: Nature's gross sometimes.

CHARLIE: It's just like a pile of mashed together bug parts.

DAMON: And you can see that there's live bugs on top and then all the way down at the

base are things that are much more digested.

KIRBY: That's. DAMON: Kind of like coffee grounds.

KIRBY: Ugh. CHARLIE: And is that like a moth or something?

DAMON: There's probably four or five really big moths in there.

CHARLIE: Not gonna lie, you and Kirby, you guys definitely got me convinced that plants

are not just passive little creatures that sit on your desk all day.

DAMON: Well, I knew we could do it.

CHARLIE: Kirb I'm pretty hyped up to get back to HQ, get in our roles a little,

prep for the play. What do you think?

KIRBY: Let's do it.

KIRBY (off-screen): Weird but true, broccoli and artichokes are flowers,

and eggplant is a berry!

KIRBY: Hey guys!

We just got back from diving with kelp and checking out some super

weird carnivorous plants in California.

CHARLIE: Those carnivorous plants were so sweet.

KIRBY: Seriously. I'm so ready for tonight's play.

CHARLIE: Oh yeah?

You think you're finally getting into the role of botanist?

KIRBY: Totally.

And Charles, your whole houseplant role is a lot cooler than you think.

CHARLIE: I don't think so, Kirb.

It feels pretty cut and dry to me.

KIRBY: I'm a botanist. CHARLIE: In the play. KIRBY: Still a botanist.

So I can prove you wrong.

Just sayin', plants will surprise you.

And I'm not just talking about carnivorous plants.

CHARLIE: Go on.

KIRBY: Some plants have outsmarted animals.

CHARLIE: But plants don't have brains.

KIRBY: But they have evolved.

CHARLIE: Order! Order! Order! Order!

I hereby declare this meeting of the Secret Society of Seeds and Cones

now in session.

CHARLIE: All rise for the entrance of High Admiral, First Propagator-in-Chief,

Super Secret Senior Seeder, and Head of the Snack Committee, Kirby.

(Applause).

CROWD: Flora! Flora! CHARLIE: Flora! Flora!

KIRBY: Yes, yes, flora, flora. Flora, flora.

Seeds and saplings, nuts and trees, we gather here today to reveal the newest

inductees of fantastic flora into our prestigious order.

(Applause).

KIRBY: Yes, these are plants who, like you, have evolved to outsmart animals.

(Applause).

KIRBY: The newest member is, Brother Clover.

KIRBY (off-screen): Individual clovers share information with each other.

They're connected by a series of underground stems called runners.

If one clover is attacked, by a caterpillar,

for example, a message is sent through the runner system that alerts the other clovers.

KIRBY (off-screen): Upon receiving the warning signal, these clovers become all tough

and chewy, making them taste all nasty to the caterpillar.

KIRBY: The clover!

(Applause).

CHARLIE: Hail Clover!

KIRBY: Next up, we welcome the mighty, Sister Maize.

(Applause).

KIRBY (off-screen): Maize, AKA corn, has mastered the art of cross-species communication!

If corn is being eaten by herbivores, like caterpillars, it can release chemical

signals into the air.

Those chemicals attract wasps that lay their eggs inside the caterpillars.

Once the eggs hatch, no more caterpillars.

KIRBY: The maize!

(Applause).

CROWD: Flo-ra! Flo-ra! CHARLIE: Flo-ra! Flo-ra!

KIRBY: And last but certainly not least, we welcome, Sister Pitcher Plant.

(Applause).

KIRBY (off-screen): Pitcher plants that grow in Borneo have an upper pitcher that

reflects the echolocation calls that bats send out.

Those bats can identify the location of pitcher plants and fly over

for a nice little roosting spot.

As the bat roosts, it deposits important nutrients back into the plant

with its guano that the plant uses to grow.

Yep, deposits guano, you know what I mean.

KIRBY: The pitcher plant!

CHARLIE: Flo-ra! Flo-ra! Flo-ra! CROWD: Flo-ra! Flo-ra! Flo-ra!

(Applause).

KIRBY: Plants forever! CHARLIE: Hizah!

(Crowd cheers).

CHARLIE: These plants are no joke.

KIRBY: I told ya.

CHARLIE: I can already feel myself getting into character.

KIRBY: I knew you could do it.

CHARLIE: Carnivorous, conniving, an excellent communicator.

I was born for this role.

I already know how I'm gonna play this guy.

KIRBY: Whatever gets you excited man, but we gotta go.

It's almost time.

CHARLIE: Let's costume up.

KIRBY: One sec. CHARLIE: Almost ready.

Are you ready, Chuck Finemeadow?

KIRBY: Boom. Ready, Houseplant number 3?

CHARLIE: Boom! Born ready.

KIRBY: Pitcher plant, I like it.

CHARLIE: All right, let's do this thing.

BOY: Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Midsummer Scientist Dream, Box Office Smash!

CHARLIE (off-screen): A new play, produced by a local Chicago theater troupe is

sweeping the nation.

Led by the star power of Lead Botanist and Houseplant number 3, the show is sold out

until May of 3 years from now!

Broadway. Tony talks.

Movie adaptations.

We may never see the end of this duo's star power.

CHARLIE: Yeah, yeah.

BOTH: Victory! Victory! Victory!

CHARLIE: So, it went well.

KIRBY: Very well.

Five minutes in Charles ate all the main characters.

CHARLIE: It just felt right.

KIRBY: It was amazing.

CHARLIE: Then Kirby jumped in as Chuck Finemeadow and knocked it out of the park.

The hype is real.

KIRBY: They're doing Hamlet next.

I wanna tryout for Ophelia, the noblewoman of Denmark.

Did you know that in the Danish alphabet they have three letters

that come after "z"?

CHARLIE: That's weird.

Is there someone I can eat in that play too?

KIRBY: We can probably figure something out.

We gotta have a book about Denmark somewhere.

CHARLIE: All right guys, it looks like we've got a new project on our hands,

but thanks so much for stopping by.

Come by again when we discover more things that are weird...

KIRBY: But true! CHARLIE: We'll see you soon! Denmark huh?

KIRBY: Denmark. CHARLIE: What country is that even in?

Oh it is a country.

Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.