The people behind Plant Reference
We are a small team of botanists, educators, and engineers on a simple mission: make the world's plant knowledge easy to learn, reliable to trust, and free to reach.
Our story
Plant Reference began in a glasshouse. Dr. Eleanor Hartwell had spent decades cataloguing living collections, and kept meeting the same frustration: the people who most wanted to learn plants — students cramming for the CPH, new gardeners, curious professionals — had no single place to study them properly. The good references were locked in textbooks; the friendly tools were botanically thin.
So we built the thing we wished existed. A reference deep enough for a horticulturist, approachable enough for a beginner, and rigorous enough that you can quote it on an exam. Today Plant Reference pairs a deep plant database with flashcards, quizzes, care guides, and design calculators — all of it grounded in real botanical sources and most of it free.
What we stand for
Botanically rigorous
Every species profile, care guide, and quiz answer is checked against primary botanical sources. If we are not certain, we say so — and we fix it fast.
Accessible to everyone
Botanical knowledge should not sit behind a paywall. The core of Plant Reference is free, forever, for students, gardeners, and professionals alike.
Honest by default
No dark patterns, no selling your data, no manufactured urgency. We build tools we would want our own families to use.
Built for the long term
We are growing Plant Reference sustainably so it is still here, still free, and still improving for the next generation of plant people.
Meet the team
The botanists, educators, and builders who tend Plant Reference every day.
Dr. Eleanor Hartwell
Founder & Chief Botanist
A botanist of thirty years, Eleanor ran the systematics collection at a national botanic garden before founding Plant Reference. She still writes every taxonomy review herself.
Marcus Adeyemi
Co-Founder & Head of Engineering
Marcus builds the systems that keep our growing plant database fast and accurate. Ex-fintech, lifelong fern keeper, and the reason the app loads in under a second.
Priya Raghavan
Director of Horticulture Education
A certified horticulturist and former community-college instructor, Priya designs the study paths and exam prep that help learners pass the CPH and beyond.
Sofia Delgado
Lead Botanical Editor
Sofia stewards every care guide and species profile on the site, fact-checking against primary botanical sources so our content stays trustworthy and plain-spoken.
Liam O'Connor
Head of Product & Design
Liam shapes how Plant Reference feels to use — from the flashcard flow to the color-coded plant names — with a designer’s eye and a propagator’s patience.
Kenji Tanaka
Horticulture Intern
A horticulture student and our learner-in-residence, Kenji runs the propagation bench and stress-tests every new deck and quiz before it ships — if it makes sense to him, it makes sense to you.
Work with us
We are a remote-first team and we love hearing from plant people — whether you want to partner with us, contribute content, or just tell us what to build next. Drop us a line.