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Anyone who identifies plants and fungi around the world is welcome to add any inspirational botanical works that they use regularly in their work as botanists.

Some books are included as they are model editions of literature produced by botanists in some countries, and deserve to inspire botanical scholarship in other countries where botany and taxonomy is lower down on the science research agenda.

The diversity of knowledge that a botanist in public service curates in their mind ranges from geography, land tenure, climate, meterology, vegetation, forestry, agriculture, dendrology, mycology, bryology, algology, taxonomy, databases, statistics, anatomy, plectology, morphology, pathology, microscopy, chemistry, genetics, bioinformatics, systematics and so on.

I hereby invite the community on goodreads to contribute to this listopia of 'Botany Reference Books' to create a Botany Taxonomy Utopia.

@Howard
Heart of Darkness (#17)? Please explain... Thanks.

This classic work describes an effect of European colonialism in Africa and the fearfulness of people. Being aware of this colonial history is important as botanical exploration can be portrayed as a colonial intellectual enterprise. Several other books on Africa - Tim Butcher, Barbara Kingsolver, etc. also show that rapid transits of forest habitat is normal making all taxa species inventory research difficult, not only from a practical fieldwork perspective in socially hostile locations but also from an intellectual perspective of comprehensive scholarship, give the short tropical days and the difficulty of processing and exporting voucher specimens.