Join botanist Tod F. Stuessy on plant collecting expeditions to the diverse ecologies of Latin America. 

Learning about plants is fundamental for understanding and appreciating our world. In pursuit of this knowledge, botanists like Tod F. Stuessy trek deep into the natural habitats of various flora, collecting specimens for further scientific study. While making up only a small portion of the globe, the diverse habitats of Latin America, which include sweeping coastal savannas, humid rainforests, cactus-filled deserts, and high alpine meadows, nurture a vast array of unique plants.

In this book, Stuessy takes his readers on plant collecting expeditions to Mexico, Central America, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina. While these trips focus on learning the botanical diversity of specific regions and locating particular plant groups for analysis, fieldwork involves many challenges—financial, logistic, cultural, linguistic, emotional, and, of course, scientific. Stuessy recounts expedition hardships with bare honesty, from experiencing altitude sickness in the Atacama Desert to navigating areas with active terrorists in Peru. But these perils are intertwined with the joys of collaborative exploration, as Stuessy and his team members discover little-known wonders in remote forests or walk in the footsteps of historical predecessors. Plant collecting opens doors to interpreting the world in special ways, providing ground-level insights to the green world and the people who inhabit these same environments.