Introduction to Botany
A Botanists conduct various studies on plant biology. This may include studying an individual plant or an entire ecology. In essence, botany is the investigative science of plant biology.
A typical Botanist may be involved in multiple tasks including academics, teaching and researching - field and laboratory studies.
Specific fields that may interrelate with botanical studies includes horticulture, forestry and other unrelated fields such as pharmacology and agronomy.
Horticulture (plant cultivation) and forestry (the art of cultivating a forest or growing timber) can be incorporated into botanical studies. Pharmacology (study of drugs, it’s uses and effects) and agronomy (soil and plant sciences to land management and crop production) are unrelated fields that may require botanical knowledge.
Various aspects of botany have direct importance to human advancement and welfare. Fields such as horticulture and forestry are closely interrelated to basic botanical studies. Pharmacology and agronomy, however, are not as closely related, but still rely on basic botanical knowledge.
Botany, as a science, was first conducted in the 4th century BC by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus. His treatises on the morphology, classification and reproduction of plants were extremely influential on the discipline until the 17th century. Modern botany was developed around the 16th century, in part by the invention of the microscope in 1590.
The Greeks believed that plants obtain their nourishment from the soil only, however, during the 17th century, Belgian Scientist Jan Baptista Van Helmont demonstrated that soil is not the main contributor of plant weight. English chemist Joseph Priestly demonstrated that growing plants “restored” oxygen lost in the atmosphere (18th century). Jan Ingenhousz, a Dutch physiologist extended this discovery by proving that light is required for plants to produce oxygen. These and other discoveries formed the basis for modern “plant physiology;” a branch of botany concerning basic plant functions.
Botany do not need fossil records for historical information regarding classification and evolution. There’s a limited collection of paleobotany (the study of plant fossil) fossil records unlike other fields such as zoology (the study of animals) where the fossil archive is much more extensive.
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