This is a bit of a random, and admittedly snarky, question. Why do folks who are interested in plants in a hobby/amateur way often refer to themselves as “botanists”? This seems pretentious and egotistical. In many cases, they are not trained botanists.
A birder would never call themself an “ornithologist,” lest they get laughed right out of the community!
Take this as light-hearted, please. But I’d love to hear others’ opinions!
At least in Canada, “botanist” is not a regulated occupation (which would require special licencing to use the title):
One of the greatest strengths of iNaturalist is that expertise is based on the knowledge that you demonstrate, rather than on formal credentials. We have many self-taught experts who are so knowledgeable that they find misidentified specimens in herbariums. If you know your stuff, and you are committed to helping others, then you are welcome here!
Oh for sure! And the benefits amateurs offer to a resource like this are tremendous. That’s not at all the point I’m making here, though!
I don’t think there really has to be a reason other than the fact that different fields do things differently. In the plant world, the term “botanist” is more broadly applied than “ornithologist” is in the bird realm. It’s not really a matter of ego or credentials.
Welcome to the forum.
What would you have them call themselves – planters?
In all seriousness, if a botanist is a scientist who studies (at least some aspect of) plants, and this is a citizen science website, I guess citizen botanist might be appropriate if someone lacks formal credentials but (1) who would determine that threshold (2) goodness how clunky is that and (3) there are so many
whose passion leads them to study some aspect so well that they develop expertise that would be hard to replicate. They essentially become experts in their fields – very specialized botanists. I have not yet seen anyone
Is this concerning to you for any reason in particular?
When my hiking group is out looking at flowers and plants - we are botanising. We are not botanists. But perhaps other countries use different terms. South Africa’s botanists are university trained scientists. We don’t have ‘master naturalists’ as in USA.
I’m not sure what’s standard for plants, but I considered myself an amateur malacologist before I started grad school. To my ears an amateur botanist is no less of a botanist than a professional botanist, but it sounds like you are defining botanist in a way that it requires professional training. Maybe others don’t. Just because you don’t make money doing something doesn’t mean you can’t study it.
I haven’t really noticed that around here. If anything amateur entomologists and mycologists are more likely to refer to themselves that way than amateur botanists, and yes, there are amateur ornithologists too!
But one major reason most birders wouldn’t refer to themselves as ornithologists is because they aren’t. These words all refer to someone who studies this group of organisms. The small number of bird species (compared to plants) and (at least here in the United States) ready availability of comprehensive guides written in basic English, mean that people can become very avid birders in the sense of the lengths they will go to to check a species off their life list, without ever studying birds at all.
On the other hand the serious plant enthusiast basically needs to become a botanist to even figure out what plants we are seeing. This is partly due to the diversity of plants themselves, and partly due to an unfortunate lack of literature meant for the non-botanist.
Someone who just enjoys looking at pretty flowers without putting names to them is not a botanist, but putting names to most plants takes a lot more “studying” than with something like birds.
Then, once you know all the fancy botany terms you needed to understand your books, you need to remember not to use them when talking to non-botanists, and one day you wake up and realize, “I guess I’m a botanist.” 
It’s an interesting question, and presumably does come down to norms.
A birder would likely not call themselves an ornithologist without some formal training and/or employment in a position that works with birds. Likewise a herper wouldn’t call themselves a herpetologist unless they met those criteria as well. I personally didn’t call myself a herpetologist until I’d finished my masters and had actually done some research involving herps. This to me is the key difference between an “ologist” and someone who just has an affinity for a specific group of organisms - the ologists are generating new data and producing something else with it (management plans, books, research papers, whatever), while the aficionados are generally just observing and potentially recording data. The ologists often have some position of employment for which they do their work, but not always (amateur ologists are less common but definitely important).
Those are the main differences in how the ologists are used in the fields I intersect with, but it would be interesting to know from plant types if there are any similar differences in terms/usage.
In all seriousness, what is your point then? I reread everything and I don’t understand what else you could be saying. If someone, especially on a citizen-scientist site, demonstrates expertise in plants and calls themselves a botanist, I’m not seeing an issue with it. If we’re all misunderstanding you, please explain, but this reads like the kind of opinion that makes citizen scientists feel they have nothing to offer, but that’s what iNaturalist is all about: the average person taking an interest and contributing to science regardless of skill level.
OP did note
I am new to iNaturalist and it is something I noticed. I was curious… not really making a point.
I’m autistic and genuinely did not understand what tone to read that post in. I’m not trying to be a jerk, I honestly don’t understand and was asking for clarification while explaining what I had thought they were saying so they could correct me.
As someone who is interested in plants and knows others who are interested in plants, I’ve never seen or heard of anyone calling themselves a botanist that wasn’t academically trained in botany. I am well above average in plant IDs but am clearly NOT a botanist nor a taxonomist. I’m just an ecologist interested in plants. Where are you hearing plant lovers calling them selves botanists?
Other comments already covered points but it’s also shorter and easier to say compared to a lot of the -ologists, from an ease-of-use standpoint it’s comparatively more convenient so it might just get used more. I’m also not sure if there’s a common hobby/amateur phrase for plant enthusiasts that isn’t gardening related.
I think the birding vs ornithologist distinction is interesting because it is a difference with a history of explicit differentiation. At least in the USA and Canada, the American Ornithologists Union was the formal scientific organization for professional Ornithologists since the 1800s. In the 1960s, the non-scientist bird enthusiasts wanted their own organization dedicated explicitly to the hobby of finding birds and listing them, and they started the American Birding Association. There was little overlap in the goals of the ABA and AOU early on, with Ornithologists being focused on science and conservation and the ABA being focused on competitive listing and “birding” as a pastime.
I don’t know of any other taxon with such an explicit separation between the professional and hobbyist branches into their own organizations with competing taxonomies and checklists. In fact several Lepidopterist societies I’ve been in had the goal written into their founding documents to NOT be like the birders/ornithologists and welcome hobbyists and professionals into the same society. I don’t think anyone finds it odd to refer to a moth enthusiast as an “amateur Lepidopterist”, or to a plant enthusiast as an “amateur botanist”, but birder vs. ornithologist as a distinction has a long history.
11,000 birds: Red ones, blue ones . . . this will be fun!
380,000 plants: You’d better sit down. This might take a while!
Edit: Orchids alone have around 30,000 species. That’s roughly equivalent to all birds (11k), all reptiles (12k), and all mammals (6600 species) added together!
Why is it botany not botan-ology = put out to grass ;~) - botany gets its name directly from the Ancient Greek word botanē (meaning pasture or grass)
Why are they botanists not botan-ologists (artist, flautist we don’t use -ist much) Phytologist. Plant biologist.
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I am not sure of how things work in other parts of the world, but in Australia there is no strict criteria to prevent you calling yourself a botanist, ornithologist, mycologist etc. whether or not you do it as personal interest or as paid job.
If you want to work as an ecologist however, you need to provide evidence in the form of both academic qualifications and experience to be able to provide advice where legislation specifies that such advice must be provided by an “ecologist”. If the ecology advice specifically pertains to botany for example, you may need to demonstrate experience and qualifications in botany as well.
Of course anyone with an interest in ecologist can call themselves an ecologist if they are not providing advice in response to specific legislation.
The distinction may only be relevant in some parts of the world. For example, the word “birder” has no precise equivalent in French; they are simply an “ornithologue amateur” (hobbyist ornithologist, as opposed to professional i.e. practicing for money; does not explicitly imply degrees or skills). Anyone can be a “botaniste amateur”, “paléontologue amateur” and so on.
