For the longest time, this profession was traveling to a distant culture and collecting plants. In the last 20 years, the paradigm's been changing. What we now do is add the modern tools of science to this old discipline. Also, we educate. We try to help urban peoples see how much we all depend on plants.
Plants are the bottom line in life.
They support all of life. It featured a couple of big ethnobotanist fantasies in it. That's always been my dream. To have the latest scientific equipment down in the middle of nowhere. The second fantasy in that movie was when Sean Connery wrote for a research assistant, Lorraine Bracco peddled up in a boat.