Category: Introduction To Botany

The art and science of cultivating plants,including ornamentals, fruit, and vegetables.

As with other life forms in biology, plant life can be studied from different perspectives, from the molecular, genetic and biochemical level through organelles, cells, tissues, organs, individuals, plant populations, and communities of plants. At each of these levels a botanist might be concerned with the classification ( taxonomy), structure ( anatomy), or function ( physiology) of plant life. Historically, botany covers all organisms that were not considered to…

Theophrastus, a Greek philosopher who first studied with Plato and then became a disciple of Aristotle, is credited with founding botany. Only two of an estimated 200 botanical treatises written by him are known to science: originally written in Greek about 300 BCE, they have survived in the form of Latin manuscripts, De causis plantarum and De historia plantarum. His basic concepts of morphology, classification, and the natural history of plants, accepted without…

Botany is the branch of biology that deals with the study of plants, including their structure, properties, and biochemical processes. Also included are plant classification and the study of plant diseases and of interactions with the environment. The principles and findings of botany have provided the base for such applied sciences as agriculture, horticulture, and forestry. Plants were of paramount importance to early humans, who depended upon them…