Paul Kirika is the son of the famous Kenyan botanist, the late Mzee Kajui, and is now himself considered one of the most knowledgeable field botanists in East Africa. His work has taken him from the coastal forests to the mountaintops, from the humid lake region to the dry and remote northern areas and the dwindling forests around Nairobi. Together with Tim Pearce, a botanist from the UK, he has been struggling to find rare plant species in the mountains of Kenya that could hold the key to human food security.