We are joking. Not joking.
Irony must be falling out of fashion faster than botany.
Ran into a charming pair of folks at Pinnacles National Park yesterday who called themselves “plant weirdos”, which I like.
This may vary across regional variants of English but growing up in the U.K. in the 70s and 80s, “ornithologist” was absolutely the word used for someone interested in birds as a hobby. It was basically a synonym for “bird watcher”. “Birder” seems to have become a lot more popular since the 90s.
Also, I’m very interested in plants but wouldn’t refer to myself as a botanist as I don’t have an academic qualification. I also wouldn’t really be offended if another amateur with similar interests did use that term.
Cuz it sounds cool…
I (would) never call myself a botanist, ('cause I’m a vegetation ecologist - something entirely different) - but I’m botanizing (that’s what botanists and vegetation ecologists sometimes have in common)…
I thought “twitcher” was the more popular term for an avid birder in the UK. Perhaps the analogous term for someone into chasing plants should be “twigger”? But that word might have some unappealing history.
You’re entirely correct. I think I had conflated “twitcher” with “birder”. Both seem to have “taken flight” around the same date.
If “twigger” isn’t appealing, I’m all for “plant nerd”.
Birder is more dignified than twitcher. The latter is a sub-group of birders who are focused on adding to their life list, year list, tv list and various other personal lists. Most birders will appreciate a rarity but the term includes those who for example do regular counts at their local reservoir and submit the data to the county recorder. So birder grades seamlessly into ornithologist.
Isn’t that geobotany, one of the branches of botany? Here, people doing both taxonomy and geobotany call themselves botanists.
Trained is not a matter. In the last 7-8 months, I have been the first to identify over 650 species, but I am not a trained entomologist. Passion does not count as “-ist”, not does dilettante, but I am not sure who you are talking about. A monomaniac, one neatly fully & psychotically devoted to this, can call themselves an amateur entomologist (although I do not use that much, perhaps never used)
Obviously to some taxa, things won’t work. Saying that you are an “ornithologist” will certainly look like a joke, because anyone can bird & use Merlin.
I feel like this is the exact same in Mycology - maybe more so, actually.
Most of the mycologists I know lack formal education. I do know a few with PHDs, of course, but the list of schools with an acutal mycology program in the USA could be counted on two hands - and most of those are master/doctorate level programs that require doing a botany degree with a focus in plant pathogens first.
Which is incredibly inaccessible, especially when you consider that there’s basically no money to be had in publishing on fungal taxonomy.
So what is enough for someone to call themselves a mycologist? I have (a few) publications and I’m actually employed to do field mycology (along with some adjacent field botany work) - but can I not call myself a mycologist because I don’t have a degree to show it?
Earlier this week, two New Caledonian users referred to me as an ‘expert in Araucarias’ :)
I have no formal education on plants beyond what’s in the intro bio classes that premeds take.
Honestly, I haven’t come across this. Where do you see it happening?
furthermore - in my opinion, ecologists and (real) botanists are two very different types of people - at least tendentially
The word implies formal training and/or certification. Using it on everyone who has an avid interest in plants dilutes its meaning and has no positive benefits other than raising the ego of the user.