Botany (noun)

So I have been reading The Book of Black Flowers with White Petals. It appears to be some sort of treatise on the Slender Man; however, everything is crouched in metaphorical terms and cryptic words. The Slender Man is described as the "the Black Botanist, who observes how the flowers wilt."

He walks among the stalks and seeks the flowers that stand the tallest and then snips them down. Sometimes, will he bend or crook a stalk so that it is lower than the others. Sometimes, will he leave a stalk alone to grow. His will is unknown, his botany strange and unnatural. But only he knows how to grow the black flowers with white petals.

I haven't yet gotten to the part where they explain what the "black flowers with white petals" are. In any case, it is an intriguing book, though I do not know why it was left for me or for what purpose.