So You Want to Teach Yourself Botany: A Reading List From Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't

Botany has a reputation problem: an intimidating vocabulary, a confusing lexicon and an academic culture that can turn curious beginners away. The reading list published by the project Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't opens with a blunt piece of advice — don't be intimidated. With the internet, it notes, you have twenty-four-hour access to the library: look up every unfamiliar word and ask questions.

Start with Latin and the rules of naming

The first concept worth learning is Latin terminology. The list explains why the system survived: Linnaeus realised scientists from different cultures needed one universal standard, and while his context was limited, the system works — which is why common names fail at scale. A single common name such as "cedar" can refer to eight unrelated plants, while Cedrus denotes one genus containing species such as C. libani, C. deodara and C. atlantica. Nomenclature has rules, too: the genus is capitalised, the species name is lowercase, and both are italicised. Writing "Cedrus Atlantica" is a dead giveaway that you do not know what you are doing, the author notes.

Taxonomy is the method behind the madness

The second pillar is taxonomy, which the list calls genuinely cool because organisms are grouped by evolutionary relatedness. Once you learn the traits that unite a family, genus or tribe, you can identify members of that group you have never seen before — recognising what a plant is related to, and therefore which family to search under, whether on iNaturalist's explore feature or in a printed flora.

Two core textbooks

The list recommends starting with two books. Plant Systematics by Michael Simpson is described as the seminal textbook for a deeper dive: it covers plant evolution and identification through synapomorphies, explains how botanists inferred relationships before DNA analysis and which of those assumptions later proved wrong, and works family by family and order by order. The third edition is the most current, and the book is expected to serve as a reference for at least a decade. Raven's Biology of Plants covers the fundamentals of plant biology and the nuances of evolution — ecotypes, allele frequencies, the Hardy-Weinberg theorem, convergent evolution — with examples of charismatic species.

The wider shelf

Beyond those two, the list ranges across phylogeny, geology and ecology: Phylogeny and Evolution of the Angiosperms by Pam and Doug Soltis, The Tangled Tree by David Quammen, Plant Evolution by Karl Niklas, Botany for Gardeners by Brian Capon, A Botanist's Vocabulary by Susan Pell and regional works such as A Natural History of California by Allan Schoenherr. The author also raises the cost of self-education, arguing that no one on the list would want a reader priced out of their work.