Botania is tech with flowers. Almost everything happens visibly in the world: flowers produce mp;1manamp;0, spreaders fire it as glowing bursts, pools store it, altars transform items.
Your first goal: find 
Mystical Flowers and build a 
Petal Apothecary.
Crafting Tableshapeless
+
1 × Lexica BotaniaRequired materials
Book1 ×Acacia Sapling1 ×In short:
1. Collect flowers → petals
2. Apothecary + water → Pure Daisy
3. Livingrock/livingwood
4. Spreader, pool, Endoflame
5. Manasteel in the pool
6. Runic altar → runes
7. Terrasteel → elven gateway
More: Progression.