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In his theory of evolution, Charles Darwin proposed that living beings were "all netted together" through a common ancestry. Yet one branch of the tree of life, the plant kingdom, was Darwin's most enduring focus. He was a major field collector, a consummate and sustained observer of plant life, a rigorous botanical experimentalist, and the high theorist of plant evolution.

Botany played a pivotal part in each phase of Darwin's life. As an undergraduate, he collected specimens for his botany professor's herbarium while on a geological expedition in Wales. Voyaging for five years aboard the HMS Beagle, he collected plants along with fossil bones and bird skins. Preparing to write On the Origin of Species, botany became critical to the growth of his evolutionary theory. Ultimately, he turned his home and the surrounding countryside into a botanical field station.

Darwin's six botanical books would recast large areas of plant science. His studies on the fertilization of orchids, on insectivorous plants, and on the climbing and other plant movements were each a beautifully articulate example of how evolution could solve the traditional mysteries of natural history. Through his work, Darwin laid foundations for modern botany that remain firm to this day.