Students following a pre-Certificate year in biology (the preliminary year of a 4-year BSc programme) learnt about plant diversity through integrated field and classroom studies carried out in an afforested area of north-east England. The students identified, listed and made interpretive drawings of their own choice of the specimens they had collected. This open-ended approach led to the generation of a collective knowledge base, that was much wider than that of the individual students, and that was available to be drawn upon by student groups in their planning of subsequent field project work. The approach contrasts with conventional laboratory teaching of plant diversity, through use of representative specimens, in which all students tend to finish up with an essentially identical and limited range of knowledge and understanding. (Contains 2 tables.)