Botanize

1770, Joseph Banks, The Endeavour Journal of Sir Joseph Banks, entry for 1770 January 22. http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty.html#banks Dr Solander and Myself were botanizing

When he was not studying, he was botanizing or mineralogizing with O'Toole's chaplain.

'Tis best when Frank takes his cousin ashore, / She loves botanising, / While Sissy who's left, can handle an oar / In a manner surprising.

The only compensation he could get seems to have been to botanize and zoologize, as it were, on his visitors.

There it erects tents capable of holding about one hundred and fifty people, and there the members and their friends gather for a fortnight to climb mountains, botanize, zoologize, or merely enjoy life.