Generally, students used very basic perception of plants’ diversity to explain their evaluation processes. This was true for all codes. When talking about aesthetic values of plants, most answers were simply ‘plants are beautiful’. Neither specific colours nor tactile nor olfactory values were mentioned or explained in detail. Similar patterns have been found with the code ‘Regulating ecosystem services’. Students have only vague ideas of plants ‘improving the air’ or ‘providing shade’. Nonetheless, students considered plants important. This was even the case if they misunderstood their role in the ecosystem; for example, when falsely stating that plants provide carbon dioxide.

In a first step, including aesthetic considerations into the botany class seems to be an appropriate gateway into improving students’ positive attitudes towards plants. This can be easily accomplished by biology educators with only limited adaptation of their lesson plans; for example, by using attractive plants as study objects. Furthermore, introducing and teaching about plants’ ecosystem services gives students not only an additional evaluation criterion to reason their attitudes but might simultaneously improve acceptance for conservation attempts (Chan et al. Citation2011). By improving and understanding students’ attitudes towards this important group of organisms, we can hopefully look forward to a higher acceptance and attention towards conservation activities regarding plants in these critical times of global biodiversity loss.

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