Power

Botanists have credentials, pull down a living wage (usually), and enjoy other perks of scientific training.

Power, however, is not one of these perks, unless you count a monkey wrench as one of the cool tools of the trade. But here, we're speaking figuratively.

You see, botanists, like many of their fellow scientists, can throw a monkey wrench into the best-laid plans of developers of things like buildings, dams, aqueducts, bridges. A botanist proclaiming that a rare, soon-to-be-extinct form of plant life will be crushed into oblivion by the construction of a multi-pronged theme park could spell the end of those grandiose plans, thanks to the site flunking the environmental impact report (called an EIR).

Developers would all blame the debacle on the sweet, shy botanist who really would rather commune with flora, not fauna, and not spend time torpedoing EIRs. Also, expert testimony from a botanist about the difference between hemp and cannabis whatever can make or break a court case.

Not bad—for a botanist.