Transcription of video clip Botany, a family story!

Back to video clip

© Jardin botanique de Montréal
Isabelle Aubin

A large part of my work is botany, and botany, my basic knowledge of botany, I learned at a young age, since I was always outside, observing plants.

A large part of my apprenticeship began, one could say, at age four. When I used to go for walks with my mother, she would show me plants.

I learned a great deal about identifying plants at that point. And then, my mother and I would go on walks and discover plants.

We would look one up in a book and say, "Hey, that looks very beautiful!" And then, we would discover it in the woods and be quite impressed to have found it and then to be able to identify it.

That's where my interest in plants comes from. Actually, those were my games! All of nature, all about plants, all that, those were my games. The different shapes, the different structures they had, they were like games for me.

So, I did a lot of observing. So, the principles of ecology were there to start with, so to speak. I understood… the big picture, somewhat, how it all fit together.

I only had to match the words to it and gain a real understanding of what it is.

My daughter is four years old, and she is a very good botanist in training.
I teach botany in the summertime, and sometimes she comes to spend a few hours with us.

And then she has a great time showing the students plants, and asking them tough questions.
She knows plants well, especially edible ones!