Knowing how to name plants can help one develop a better relationship with the outdoors; a brief overview of how life is divided and classified; an example of taxonomy using a ponderosa pine tree; helpful tools every good casual botanist needs.

Non-flowering plants have been on Earth longer than plants with flowers; starting with mosses, liverworts and hornworts; tried-and-true methods for identifying ferns and fern allies; several phyla of gymnosperms and their species; the Gingko tree.

The many classification systems botanists use to name plants; the binomial system; the phenetic classification system aims at revealing relationships based on shared characteristics; the three ways botanists determine the ancestral traits of plants.

Professor Kleier makes sense of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG), which botanists use to classify flowering plants; how APG comes about, what it does; why it is important to field botanists; the six guiding principles for naming a plant species.

From roots and stems to leaf hairs and fruits, determining the parts of plants so one can make their identifications in the field; the two main types of root systems; the most common leaf arrangements; the three different symmetry types for flowers.

An in-depth exploration of the major plant families; the difference between monocots and eudicots; the most ancient plant family in North America and four basal angiosperms; encountering water lilies, magnolia trees, pawpaws and avocado trees.