How do botanists differentiate between different species?
I’ve gotten pretty good at using a dichotomous key to identify plants in my area down to the genus, but from there I wonder, how do botanists identify specific species? It seems like such a specific classification sometimes that I don’t know how to find the small, minuscule differences that you need to identify one single species. Moreover, where do you even find the particular morphological information on each species to have a confident guess on what it is? For example, I found this beautiful plant on a hike yesterday that I’m 100% confident is of the genus castilleja (paintbrush), but from there, I don’t know if it’s castilleja miniata, castilleja integra, or maybe something else entirely. There’s just not enough info on each of those species’ wikipedia pages to know all the factors needed to make an accurate identification. Thank you!