Question: When did you become to have interest in plants and what do you like most about plant?

Oli Wilson answered on 10 Nov 2017:

That’s a great question – I think it might have been the 14th of October 2008. It was raining, and I was in my second week at university. We were being introduced to the various facilities around the university (like the libraries), and on this drizzly day we had a tour of the botanic garden. The man who was the director then, Timothy Walker, is an incredible communicator with a great passion for plants (he presented a BBC documentary series a few years ago), and it was his tour of the garden that first made me realise that plants could be really interesting.
One of the plants I remember him picking and showing us was a purple coneflower – he talked about how native Americans used it for medicine and I remember being surprised that I’d never thought about plants being useful like that. I’ve studied how humans use plants a lot since then, and it’s still the most interesting thing about them for me! They’re essential to so many parts of our life – they make up our clothes, buildings, food, medicines, we like having them around and we think they’re important – and I think they should be appreciated for that 🙂