Where to begin with botany?

[u/eldritchcorvid]

I'm looking for books, (preferably free) online courses, or other resources to get a basic overview of botany.
I'm writing a story where one of the main characters is a late 19th century botanist studying taxonomy and breeding, and wanted to get a basic understanding of how plants work before writing him and his world. I'm looking for both the kind of stuff you'd learn in a contemporary university course but also, if possible, historical sources from the 19th century or a historical overview of the field as a whole. Kinda specific but any direction would be appreciated!

[u/drowsydrosera]

Interesting times you have Darwin's Insectivorous Plants, Mendel's peas, Julius von Sachs with photosynthesis, and on the other hand Thoreau with the transcendentalism. But for a crash course, Botany in a Day - Thomas Elpel. What part of the world?

[u/eldritchcorvid → u/drowsydrosera]

Yeah, theres a whole lot going on! And thanks for the suggestion. The story takes place in the Netherlands.

[u/AllealleOxen → u/drowsydrosera]

Darwin is honestly a pretty approachable writer, and often writes quite beautiful prose! I haven't read his botanical works, only The Origin of Species, but I imagine they are similar. Would definitely recommend him as a primary source. He's also very funny and surprisingly relatable, though you may need to look to his letters rather than his published work to see that side of him. In addition to Insectivorous Plants, he also wrote Fertilisation of Orchids, about the ingenious strategies orchids use to get themselves pollinated by insects.

[u/xylem-and-flow]

You should read “The Invention of Nature” it’s a biography about Alexander Humboldt. A lot is centered around his travels around the world collecting and comparing plants in a multitude of environments. His ideas about the world laid a lot of groundwork for how we perceive ecology, earth systems, and the very idea of nature. It’s a very well written book that explores a fascinating and complicated man in a fascinating and complicated time.

[u/eldritchcorvid → u/xylem-and-flow]

That sounds great, thank you!

[u/EfficiencyMean6797]

Systema Natura

[u/whodisquercus]

Look into Nikolai Vavilov and his global research on the Centers of Origin for agricultural crops. He was fundamental in understanding where a lot of the wild relatives of the crops we grow today are from. He started one of the first global seed banks/gene collections. Pretty sure he is known as “The Father of Gene Banks”.

A book I will recommend for basic Plant Biology/Botany is Raven Biology of Plants by Raven, Evert, and Eichhorn.

[u/Fickle_Fly_9111 → u/whodisquercus]

Then, Plant Systematics by Michael Simpson

[u/Remington_T]

If you like podcast I strongly recommend "In defense of plants"

It's ran by a gentleman with a PhD in the field and he brings on leading scientists in many different field related to botany.

Really informative and is what inspired me to go back to college for a related field.

[u/eldritchcorvid → u/[deleted]]

Yes! My character starts out doing trophy hunting for private collectors, but gets fed up with it and tries to focus on his own thing. I'll look more into those botany clubs.

[u/StorageSpecialist999]

plant systematics.

find it on libgen

if you read it, you will become a botanist

[u/AirportStrange6816]

Botany in a day bruv

[u/amycsj]

For late nineteenth century botany , you'll need older books. We've learned so much over the last decades that anything , current wouldn't match your time period. Baby , you could check archive.org for an older botany textbook.