Question: how many plants do you study normally?

Rachael Eggleston answered on 22 Jul 2024:

It depends a little on what you mean by ‘plants’! Right now, I’m studying six species/types of willow bushes (you may have heard of their relative, the weeping willow). However, I’ll actually be looking at over 300 individual willow plants for my research.

In the past, I’ve focused on one species of orchid (about 100 individuals), one (or two) species of pitcher plant (about 150 individuals), and about 200 species of plants native to a valley in Colorado, which is in the Rocky Mountains in the US. In Colorado, I looked at probably a few thousand plants!

All that to say: it depends a lot on the type of research, and it depends on if you mean how many species (types) of plant or how many individual plants. Some botanists (plant scientists) will study thousands or tens of thousands of individual plants at a time!