Cryptobotany is a pseudoscience involving the study of various exotic plants which are not believed to exist by the scientific community, but which exist in folklore, literature or unsubstantiated reports. Folk legend and ethnic usage of plants, often as interdisciplinary research, is presented and developed for an unknown species, in the hope of allowing those species to be collected or adequately identified. Any researcher or writer can identify himself or herself as a cryptobotanist with varying degrees of skepticism as a protoscience.