Biology: the field guide philosophy, part 0

Self-tutoring about biology and lifestyle: the tutor wonders why searching for unfamiliar plants is exciting.

Looking through the plant guide during a spare moment, I will sometimes plan searching for a particular plant I’ve never seen, yet lives here. Why is the idea so exciting?

Perhaps searching for unfamiliar plants is rather like studying cryptozoology, etc. Although I know the plant exists, it’s as yet unknown to me, so to find it is to discover a new plant, and so enlarge the world I know. Furthermore, finding a new plant often means discovering a new environment, however confined.

Source:

Pojar, Jim and Andy MacKinnon. Plants of Coastal British Columbia. Vancouver: BC Ministry of Forests with Lone Pine Publishing, 1994.