Excellent article, Botany needs to be much more widely taught and appreciated. I had a keen interest in plants and knew a lot of wildflowers by name by the time I went to University to study Botany in 1985. The Botany course focussed on biochemistry and plant anatomy, with one course on plant ecology and a couple of field trips. Even at that time, learning plant names was not really covered! I was possibly the only person from our graduation class who had a good knowledge of field botany.
Thanks Juliet. Yes, I agree, it's hard to fathom why botany is not more widely taught, it seems as though historically there has been a reliance on knowledge of wild plants, trees and flowers being handed down, and it has dwindled. There does seem to be a resurgence of interest, but even there I wonder if it's just in my echo chamber. Whenever I run craft classes whether it's in schools, children's groups or to adults, I talk to them about wildflowers.
I think there's definitely a resurgence of interest at the community level. I take people on guided 'birdwatching' walks and always talk about wild plants as well as birds and citizen science offers a lot of opportunities for people to engage with botany. But at the University teaching level, it seems to be dwindling
Thanks for the kind mention Ling. I recently bought A Field Guide to Bryophytes by Dominic Price and Clive Beasley to help me begin to identify all the mosses I find here. In the course of this I found an excellent (independent) bookshop called nhbs. If you haven’t come across it there is an excellent range of both UK and overseas botany books. Next on my list are lichens…
Excellent article, Botany needs to be much more widely taught and appreciated. I had a keen interest in plants and knew a lot of wildflowers by name by the time I went to University to study Botany in 1985. The Botany course focussed on biochemistry and plant anatomy, with one course on plant ecology and a couple of field trips. Even at that time, learning plant names was not really covered! I was possibly the only person from our graduation class who had a good knowledge of field botany.
Thanks Juliet. Yes, I agree, it's hard to fathom why botany is not more widely taught, it seems as though historically there has been a reliance on knowledge of wild plants, trees and flowers being handed down, and it has dwindled. There does seem to be a resurgence of interest, but even there I wonder if it's just in my echo chamber. Whenever I run craft classes whether it's in schools, children's groups or to adults, I talk to them about wildflowers.
I think there's definitely a resurgence of interest at the community level. I take people on guided 'birdwatching' walks and always talk about wild plants as well as birds and citizen science offers a lot of opportunities for people to engage with botany. But at the University teaching level, it seems to be dwindling
Thanks for the kind mention Ling. I recently bought A Field Guide to Bryophytes by Dominic Price and Clive Beasley to help me begin to identify all the mosses I find here. In the course of this I found an excellent (independent) bookshop called nhbs. If you haven’t come across it there is an excellent range of both UK and overseas botany books. Next on my list are lichens…
https://www.nhbs.com/books
Thanks Michaela 😊 Also have you come across Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer? She writes so beautifully.
Yes I have, there are so many great books around!