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Chapter 1.
A shining beginning
Hidden Helpers / Until the Light Comes / Now It's Time to Bloom / Tiny Particles That Move the World / 400 Million Years of Ferns / Leaves That Came Down to Earth

Chapter 2.
Standing alone in the field
Courage to float on water / Even in a place like this, green / The armor of trees / The history of what survived / And yet, the plants of Dokdo

Chapter 3.
Strong dreamers
Turning the direction and getting closer / The reasoned march of leaves / Plants that rule the water / Plant beasts / Where did the three seeds go / Elegant poison

Chapter 4.
Let's gather together and look towards the sky
Towards Harmony / A Forest of Fragrance / A Single Chrysanthemum / The Secret of Hydrangea Petals / The Orchids Darwin Loved / Plants That Color the Earth

Chapter 5.
Heart of the Forest
The world pouring through a small window / The thoughts of roots / The selfless plant / Until a friend comes to me / Respect in names / If we can never meet again / The heart of a plant / A lamp in the wind

Thirty-one Worlds Painted by Botanists and Plants
The mysterious mechanisms of life and the brilliance of life revealed by a small seed

Go into the forest and carefully touch the bark of a cherry tree.
Let's also look at the metasequoia fruit that gets trampled underfoot.
It's amazing how the joints close tightly when soaked in water and then open up when dry.
The petals fall in a semicircle and fruit ripens in their place.
Life circulates silently.
The name of the unknown pink flower in the photo I took carelessly last year is said to be 'day primrose'.
Knowing the name made the flower more special.

Even elementary school students know that trees release oxygen through the pores in their leaves, which allows humanity to survive.
Plants, a source of water and oxygen, are essential for human survival.
And that's not all.
Sometimes, it is a friendly presence that can convey a tired and weary heart.
These days, the term 'companion plant' has become trendy, with many people growing plants and finding solace in looking at them.
One day, tired of relationships and people, I go to the forest and the park and listen to the stories the plants tell me.


The author, who dreamed of becoming a botanist because he loved plants since childhood, used his excellent drawing skills to draw academic plant illustrations, but after receiving advice from a senior colleague to try coloring, he colored his drawings for the first time.
Afterwards, the works exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society International Exhibition of Botanical Art in the UK won gold medals three times.
It is surprising that this is the first time in the history of the Royal Horticultural Society International Exhibition, but looking at his paintings makes you nod in agreement.
If you look closely at the leaves, which are so fine and delicate that you need a magnifying glass to see them, and the shades and luster that are so realistically depicted, you can feel how much the author loves plants.
The story of how he spent a year observing hydrangeas in order to capture the entire flowering process after being commissioned to paint a hydrangea clearly reveals his dedication as a painter and his heart as a botanist who must accurately depict plants.

I was commissioned to paint a hydrangea and was troubled.
The question was whether I could express the beauty of the hydrangea that the client wanted with the botanical academic drawing I was drawing.
The plant drawings I draw are scientific illustrations.
It is an academic drawing for plant research, so it contains the entire life cycle and all information about a plant.
We research and observe the entire process from seed fertilization to bud formation and fruit production, including the color of the petals that changes depending on the acidity of the soil, and collect information.
So, I started to think about how I could express the beauty of the hydrangea that the client wanted within the framework of the painting I was drawing.
-Page 188

It's not that I survived because I was strong,
The strong survive

The author's first book, "The Botanist's Notes," which he published after much deliberation, contains not only his image as an artist, but also his side as a botanist and a dedicated researcher.

Most plants cannot move and must live in one place their entire lives.
No matter where they are or what the environment is, plants adapt to their location with amazing adaptability and survive for a much longer time than humans.
Although it is a plant with strong vitality and environmental adaptability, its beginnings are small and weak.
The saying, “It is not the strong that survive, but the survivors that are strong” comes to life when looking at plants.
Each plant species has its own unique way of growing, and the author extracts from these plants the wisdom of our lives, as complex as the colors of hydrangea petals.
There are about 20,000 species of orchids distributed around the world, accounting for about 8% of the total number of seed plants. The seeds of orchids are so small that they are called 'dust seeds'.
These seeds cannot germinate on their own and require the help of a fungus to sprout.
In the case of leafless saprophytes, they do not photosynthesize and obtain nutrients from fungi.
Along with the Asteraceae family, it is the orchid with the largest number of species on Earth, but six of the nine species designated as Class 1 endangered plants in Korea are also orchids.
Although they are organisms that thrive and coexist in nature, their fate cannot be guaranteed if they are touched by human hands.

The orchid crisis is largely due to indiscriminate harvesting by humans, but environmental changes cannot be ignored.
For orchids to germinate and grow well, the soil must contain a lot of fungi that help the orchid grow.
If the temperature, humidity, and acidity of the soil change due to global warming or acid rain, preventing the fungus from growing well, orchid seeds may never wake up from their long dormancy.
-Page 22

A plant's survival is also related to the time it flowers.
This is closely related to the activity period of pollinators that deliver pollen. Day primroses that bloom during the day use butterflies and bees as pollinators, while evening primroses that bloom at night use moths as pollinators.
Because plants bloom at a time favorable for reproductive activity, the activity time or season of pollinators overlaps with the flowering period.
Wind-pollinated and water-pollinated flowers also bloom when they are well-used and at the right time and season.


Plants bloom at their own appropriate time and move on to the next stage of life.
Each person will have a different time to bloom.
Some people may come early, some may come late.
Isn't the important thing, rather than blooming early, the constant effort to bloom at the right time for you? While anticipating the moment when the flowers bloom?
-Page 39

The story of naturalized plants cannot be left out.
The common plants we see on the road, such as evening primrose, evening primrose, wild chrysanthemum, and Chinese milk vetch, are all alien species that came from abroad.
Plants that were brought from their original habitats by human hands and settled in Korea.
Among these naturalized plants, there are some species, such as Western sedge, that have such strong survival abilities that they cause serious disruption to the ecosystem, while others, such as American wormwood and thornbush, require large-scale eradication efforts.

Among the various forms of plant survival, there are plants like the creeper, which has a weak stem and supports the body of other species by wrapping itself around them; the 'electrophyte' yago, which survives by connecting to the roots or stems of other plants and relies on nutrients; and the ivy, which climbs up walls using suction cups.
The leaf in O. Henry's well-known novel, "The Last Leaf," is ivy.


The tendrils are so active that they can be called 'hands', like the hands of animals.
These hands are specialized structures found only in vines, which are modified leaves, parts of leaves, or stems.
If you look at plants like pumpkins, beans, and grapevines, you will find small tendrils that extend out thinly and curl like springs.
It's about reaching out and twisting the object in your hand and grabbing it.
This is due to the burrowing nature of the vine.
-Pages 113-115

Natural enemies that threaten the survival of plants,
human being

What do we, as humans, are to plants, which provide us with oxygen and water, and which also serve as food sources, animal feed, and medicine? The ginkgo tree, which emerged after the Paleozoic Era, is now nearly extinct in the wild.
The ginkgo forests that Westerners call the oriental landscape are actually created by human hands, and there are not many ginkgo tree habitats left.
“The ginkgo tree is listed on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature as an endangered species” (p. 237), and is a lonely plant with no close evolutionary relatives.
Due to the extinction of vector animals and climate change, only one species of ginkgo tree has survived, and “currently, wild ginkgo trees are known to inhabit some areas, such as Zhejiang Province in China, and the number of individuals is less than 200” (p. 239).

The cycads we grow as bonsai in pots also suffered a similar fate to the ginkgo trees.
Currently, about 110 species of Cycads survive, and they are also listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.
Let's also hear the story of Metasequoia.


There were other species in the genus Metasequoia, but they too went through the process of evolution and became extinct, leaving only one species, Metasequoia, alive.
Wild metasequoias are now endangered in the wild due to severe deforestation that has reduced their population.
Most of the metasequoias we see are cultivated by humans.
It was not bred naturally, but was propagated by humans through asexual reproduction such as inbreeding and cuttings.
-Pages 241-242

The Jeju Island native orchid, a Class 2 endangered plant, is in danger of extinction because people are indiscriminately picking its fruit to make alcohol.
A quick search on the internet will reveal articles about people making alcohol with the precious orchid, and the author immediately reports it.
Botanists research and report on endangered species to help preserve them, but they always have to wonder if this is really good for the plants.


It is people who protect endangered plants, but ultimately it is people who put the plants in danger of extinction.
The main reason why species that have evolved and survived on Earth for a long time suddenly disappear is not climate change or natural selection.
Direct and indirect human activities are the biggest cause.
-Page 257

With love for plants and life
With the hope that it will continue

If you look at it with interest, it becomes meaningful.
Poet Kim Chun-su sang in his poem “Flower,” “When I called his name, he came to me and became a flower.”
Even the smallest flowers we pass by without a second thought have names, and if we pay even a little attention to their lives, we can discover the grandeur and wonder of nature even in a single, small plant.
The author's hope that readers of "The Botanist's Notes" will discover the beauty of plants in the illustrations, learn to love and appreciate them through the text, and cherish each and every living thing is evident in every page.