Let’s Botanize is a wonderful project to encourage simple curiosity and engagement with the plant world around us.
I recognize this as an approach I’ve been inclined toward recently as part of my [[herbal studies]], to build familiarity with local flora by connecting with simple curiosity about each plant I encounter.
For me it begins with looking at a plant that has drawn my interest, looking little more closely than I have before.
Then, asking myself a few questions to prompt further looking, moving toward investigation.
- How would I describe it to someone else?
- What features would help distinguish it from another plant?
- What name would I give to its leaf shape, or flower petal shape?
- How would I describe its stem?
For me it’s been most interesting and accessible to begin with my own words for things, my own invented descriptions. By experimenting with this, I’ve gained more appreciation for and curiosity about the language botanists have developed for sharing their plant characterizations and have begun to learn the standardized terminology for leaf shapes and configurations and other factors for plant identifying.
Botanizing is fun because we can do it wherever we happen to be where there is also a plant! And it is a way we can simply and quickly deepen our connection to the world around us.