Botany
Botany is the branch of biology concerned with the scientific study of plants. Traditionally, botanists studied all organisms that were not generally regarded as animal; that is, they studied organisms that appeared immobile or attached to a substratum. However, advances in knowledge about the myriad forms of life have created other areas of specialized study separate from Botany for these "plant-like" organisms: fungi are studied now as the field of Mycology; bacteria and viruses are studied in Microbiology; and algae are now treated within the field of Phycology (or Algology). Organisms in these three groups — most algae, fungi, and microbes — are no longer considered to be in the Plant Kingdom. However, attention is still given to them by botanists.
History
Among the earliest of botanical works, written around 300 BC, are two large treatises by Theophrastus: On the History of Plants (Historia Plantarum) and On the Causes of Plants. Together these books constitute the most important contribution to botanical science during antiquity and on into the Middle Ages. The Roman medical writer, Dioscorides, provides important evidence on Greek and Roman knowledge of officinal plants.
In 1665, using an early microscope, Robert Hooke discovered cells in cork; a short time later in living plant tissue. Upon viewing a thin slice of cork, he wrote:
- ...I could exceedingly plainly perceive it to be all perforated and porous, much like a Honeycomb...these pores or cells , were not very deep, but consisted of a great many little boxes...
The German Leonhart Fuchs, the Swiss Conrad Gessner, and the british authors Nicholas Culpeper and John Gerard, published herbals that gave information on the officinal uses of plants.
Related subjects
- Plants
- Trees
- Fruit
- Herbs
- Seeds, stratification (botany) and germination.
- List of vegetables
- List of flowers
- Anamorphosis
See also
External links
- A Study Guide to the Science of Botany ~ at Wikibooks
- Vicent Martínez C.'s Botanical-online.com