Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't
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A botany guide recommends textbooks and explains why Latin nomenclature remains essential despite colonial origins.
The post provides a self-taught botany reading list, starting with Plant Systematics by Michael Simpson and Raven's Biology of Plants. It defends Latin binomial nomenclature as a universal system created by Linnaeus, acknowledging his era's flaws but arguing the system works. Additional texts cover phylogeny, plant evolution, ecology, and geology. The author suggests using libgen.is and sci-hub.se for free access to expensive textbooks and recommends a cheap Android tablet for reading PDFs.
What commenters are saying
Commenters broadly praised the resource and the author's YouTube channel, with several noting they discovered it through videos on Oakland guerrilla gardening and urban flora. A debate emerged over the article's characterization of Linnaeus's use of Latin as 'backwards and fucking goofy.' Multiple commenters argued Latin was the standard scientific language of 18th-century Europe and a practical choice, not a colonial imposition. One commenter suggested Simlish as a linguistically neutral alternative. Several recommended plant identification apps: Flora Incognita (free, no ads, German university project) and PlantNet.