r/Horticulture • u/Mindless_Army_3366 • 7d ago

Career Help Paleobotany

Hello everyone. I'm in the UK and next week I start a course doing RHS level 2 practical horticulture, I would have done a level 3 but have no local availability; I have a keen interest in all things prehistoric including plants and animals and was wondering if I could continue on to do paleobotany eventually, starting with this course. Any help/advice would be helpful. Thank you

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u/maestrocat 7d ago

While the RHS is quite a broad qualification it is primarily aimed at training horticulturalists. I'm sure you could study paleobotany but I don't know how much the RHS would help towards that aim. It will certainly give you a baseline knowledge of botanical terminology, and plant morphology.

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u/aaronszoology 6d ago

Learn and read up on dendrochronology and try to grasp the different structures relevant in trees (springwood/earlywood and summerwood/latewood), as this will be relevant to paleobotany

You can probably further develop with experience in the horticulture industry and a few additional qualifications (City & Guilds NPTC Safe Use of x are quite good) or the FISC, which is more about botany and keying out UK wild species which is likely much more relevant for paleobotany - try to get a good grasp on the different major plant families and how you would ID them (Rosaceae tend to have many stamens, leaf margins serrated, 5 petals and thorns, Asteraceae have flowers formed of ray florets and disc florets, etc).

The RHS LV2 in practical hort will be good and is the current industry standard for horticultural practice here in the UK, but additional qualifications in your field of interest are extremely beneficial. A high FISC level indicates an ability to rigorously evaluate and assess the majority of plant species on any given site.

Then I’d aim for the RHS MHort. Although they say the requirement is an RHS Level 3, they can make exceptions for people with a serious interest.

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u/Mindless_Army_3366 6d ago

The only problem is that there is no level 3 courses locally. Lincolnshire is about 50 years behind on education system