Keeney examines the role of botany in the lives of nineteenth-century 'botanizers,' amateur scientists who collected, identified, and preserved plant specimens as a pastime. Using popular magazines, fiction, and autobiographies of the day, she explores the popular culture of this avocation, which attracted both men and women by the thousands.

This 1895 second edition of an original 1894 volume is the product of a course in the physiology of plants given at Cambridge University. To enable the students to carry out their work effectively written instructions were needed, and these instructions were elaborated to form the basis of the book.