In “Burdock” Ms. Malcolm sets a straightforward tone for her foray into obsession and then allows the images to speak for themselves.

“For three successive summers, on the top-floor landing of a house in the Berkshires, I have been photographing burdock leaves,” she writes in the book’s essay. “I prop them in small glass bottles and photograph them head on, as if they were people facing me. No two leaves of any plant or tree are exactly alike, of course, but burdock leaves are of conspicuous and almost infinite variety. They are also outstandingly large — more than two feet long in some cases — which makes them extraordinarily good photographic subjects.”