Presents the experiences and contributions of early adventurers, explorers, and scientists responsible for discovering and documenting new types of plants, showing how their often dangerous voyages helped establish the field of botany.

"Starting in 1875, at age nineteen, Ernest T. Morris of Indianapolis began a series of seven trips to the Amazon Valley to collect bird, butterfly, beetle, and orchid specimens for wealthy patrons in the United States. He gained fame from his second journey, made in 1876-1877, in which he ventured to the remote highland villages of the Munduruku people and bartered with them for eleven ornamented human trophy heads. In the early 1880s, Morris served...