Take a break from your screen and look at plants

Botanizing is a great way to engage with life around you

When you hear about the abundance of life on Earth, what do you picture? For many people, it’s animals – but awareness of plant diversity is growing rapidly.

Our planet has nearly 300,000 species of flowering plants. Among animals, only beetles can compete with that number. There are more species of ferns than birds, more mints than mammals, and more beans than butterflies. Measured in total mass, plants make up 82% of all life on land across the globe.

We are plant scientists and co-founders of Let’s Botanize, an educational nonprofit that uses plant life to teach about ecology, evolution and biodiversity.

In the past several years we have witnessed a botanical boom, with participation in plant-based hobbies surging. From cultivating houseplants to foraging for wild foods and outdoor gardening, plant appreciation is on the rise.

Botanizing is spending time alongside plants in order to observe and appreciate them as living organisms – like birding, but with subjects that stay in place.

When you botanize, a simple walk in the woods becomes an immersive experience shared with many species. Getting to know your nonhuman neighbors is a way to engage with a changing planet.

Plant collecting and colonialism

Botanizing has a deep and checkered history. Humans have been analyzing and classifying plants for thousands of years, often to figure out what they can safely eat or cultivate.

When Europeans began exploring and colonizing other parts of the world, they were interested in finding plants that were useful as food, medicine or for other purposes.

For example, in the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company forcibly colonized the Banda Islands in what is now Indonesia in order to monopolize the cultivation and lucrative trade of nutmeg (Myristica fragrans).

In 19th-century England, Victorians became obsessed with plants, especially ferns. This craze came to be known as pteridomania, or fern fever. It coincided with the height of European imperialism across the globe, which included widespread collection of valuable plants from faraway places.