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Dr. Tanisha Williams has always loved plants,

a love nurtured by her great-grandmother.

We had these African violets all over the home

and I used to love to touch them because they have those fuzzy leaves

and she would just keep all of these plants alive.

We would go to farms and like pick our own vegetables and foods like that.

So she really instilled that really early love for plants.

She was just molding me to love plants in her own way.

Even so, Tanisha had no idea she might have a future in botany.

In fact, she didn't even know botany was a thing.

That all changed her sophomore year of college when she took a study abroad class.

And we stayed in the Amazonian ring forest and it blew my mind.

I was like, oh my gosh, this is magnificent.

The mahogany trees, it was fascinating.

The animals, the plants there, it just really opened my mind.

And so that's when I started to think about botany and ecology in this line of work.

Now, Tanisha's a plant ecologist in botanist at Bucknell University

and founder of Black Botanist Week.

An online campaign to promote and create a safe place for black people who love plants.

For the past few years, Tanisha has been part of a research team studying a mysterious plant in the Australian Outback.

So this plant is low growing, kind of sprawling across the ground.

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