Dictionary
a drug made from part of a plant (as the bark or root or leaves) of or relating to plants or botany "botanical garden"
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Wikipedia
For other meanings, see Botany (disambiguation)'' Botany is the Scientific method scientific study of plant life. As a branch of biology, it is also sometimes referred to as plant science(s) or plant biology. Botany covers a wide range of scientific disciplines that study the growth, reproduction, metabolism, morphogenesisdevelopment, phytopathologydiseases, and evolution of plantplants.
Scope and motivation of botany - As with other life forms in biology, plant life can be studied at a variety of levels, from the molecular biologymolecular, geneticsgenetic and biochemistrybiochemical level through organelles, cell biologycells, biological tissuetissues, organ (anatomy)organs, individuals, plant populations, and biodiversitycommunities of plants. At each of these levels a botanist might be concerned with the classification (taxonomy), structure (anatomy), or function (plant physiologyphysiology) of plant life.Historically, botanists studied all organisms that were not generally regarded as animal. Some of these "plant-like" organisms include: fungi (studied in mycology); bacteriumbacteria and viruses (studied in microbiology); and algae (studied in phycology). Most algae, fungi, and microbes are no longer considered to be in the plant kingdom. However, attention is still given to them by botanists; and bacteria, fungi, and algae are usually covered, somewhat superficially, in introductory botany courses. So why study plants? Plants are an utterly fundamental part of life on earth. They generate the oxygen, food, fibres, fuel and medicine that allow higher life forms to exist. While doing all this, plants also absorb carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas, through photosynthesis. A good understanding of plants is crucial to the future of human societies as it allows us to: Feed the world Understand fundamental life processes Utilise medicine and materials Understand environmental changes
Feed the world - Virtually ''all'' of the food we eat comes from plants, either directly from staple foods and other fruit and vegetables, or indirectly through livestock, which rely on plants for fodder. In other words, plants are at the base of nearly all food chains, or what ecologists call the first trophic level. Understanding how plants produce the food we eat is therefore important to be able to ''feed the world'' and provide food security for future generations, for example through plant breeding. Not all plants are beneficial to humans, weeds are a considerable problem in agriculture and botany provides some of the basic science in order to understand how to minimise their impact. Ethnobotany is the study of this and other relationships between plants and people. laid the foundations of genetics from his studies of plants.]]
Understand fundamental life processes - Plants are convenient organisms in which fundamental life processes (like cell division and protein synthesis for example) can be studied, without the ethical dilemmas of studying animals or humans. The mendelian inheritancegenetic laws of inheritance were discovered in this way by Gregor Mendel, who was studying the way peaspea shape is inherited. While at Mendel learnt from studying plants has had far reaching benefits outside of botany. Additionally, Barbara McClintock discovered 'transposonjumping genes' by studying maize. These are a few examples that demonstrate how botanical research has an ongoing relevance to the understanding of fundamental biological processes.
Utilise medicine and materials - Many of our medicationmedicinal and recreational drugs, like cannabis (drug)cannabis, caffeine and nicotine come directly from the plant kingdom. Aspirin, which originally came from the bark of willow trees, is just one example. There may be many drug discoverynovel cures for diseases provided by plants, waiting to be discovered. Popular stimulants like coffee, chocolate, tobacco and tea also come from plants. Most alcoholic beverages, come from fermentationfermenting plants such as hops and grapes.Plants also provide us with many natural materials: cotton, wood, paper, linen, vegetable oils, some types of rope and rubber are just a few examples that we often take for granted. The production of silk would not be possible without the cultivation of the mulberry plant. Sugarcane and other plants have recently been put to use as sources of biofuels which are important alternatives to fossil fuels.These are just a handful of examples showing how plant life provides humanity with important medicine and materials.
Understand environmental changes - Plants can also help us understand changes in on our environment in many ways. Understanding habitat destruction and endangered speciesspecies extinction is dependent on an accurate and complete catalogue of plants provided systematics and taxonomy.Plant responses to ultravioletultraviolet radiation can help us monitor problems like the ozone holeholes in the ozone layer. palynologyAnalysing pollen deposited by plants geologic timescalethousands or millions of years ago can help scientists to reconstruct past climates and predict future ones, an essential part of climate change research.Recording and analysing the timing of plant biological life cyclelife cycles is an important part of phenology used in climate change research.Lichens, which are sensitive to atmospheric conditions, have been extenisvely used as pollution indicatorsSo in many different ways, plants can act a bit like the 'canaryminers canary', an ''early warning system'' alerting us to important changes in our environment. In addition to these practical and scientific reasons, list of gardensplants are extremely valuable as recreation for millions of people who enjoy gardening, horticulturehorticultural and herbculinary uses of plants everyday. Botanists also argue that botany is fascinating and rewarding topic of study in its own right.
History -
Early botany (before 1945) - 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 cell (biology)cells in cork (material)cork; a short time later in living plant tissue. The German Leonhart Fuchs, the Swiss Conrad von Gesner, and the British authors Nicholas Culpeper and John Gerard, published herbals that gave information on the officinal uses of plants.
Modern botany (since 1945) - A considerable amount of new knowledge today is being generated from studying model organismsmodel plants like ''Arabidopsis thaliana''. This mustard weed was one of the first plants to have its genome sequenced. Other more commercially important plants like rice, wheat, maize and soybean are also having their genomes sequenced, although some of these are more challenging because they have more than two haploid (n) sets of chromosomes, a condition known as polyploidpolyploidy. The "Green Yeast" ''Chlamydomonas reinhardtii'' (a single-celled, green alga) is another plant model organism that has been extensively studied and provided important insights into cell biology.
See also - Agriculture Biology Botanical garden and List of botanical gardens Dendrochronology Domesticated plants and List of domesticated plants Ethnobotany Flowers and List of flowers Forestry Fruit Gardening Herbs Horticulture List of botanical journals List of botanists List of notable medicinal plants List of plant science research institutions List of publications in biology Paleobotany Plants Plant sexuality Seeds, Germination and Stratification (botany)Stratification. Soil science Spices Trees Vegetables and List of vegetables
Bibliography -
Popular science style books on Botany - David BellamyBellamy, D ''Bellamy on Botany'', ISBN 0563106662 an accessible and short introduction to various botanical subjects Capon, B: ''Botany for Gardeners'' ISBN 0881926558 Cohen, J. ''How many people can the earth support?'' W.W. Norton 1995 ISBN 0393314952 Halle, Francis. ''In praise of plants'' ISBN: 0881925500. English translation of a poetic advocacy of plants. King, J. ''Reaching for the sun: How plants work'' ISBN: 0521587387. A fluent introduction to how plants work. Thomas PakenhamPakenham, T: ''Remarkable Trees of the World'' (2002) ISBN 0297843001 Pakenham, T: ''Meetings with Remarkable Trees'' (1996) ISBN 0297832557 Pollan, M ''The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-eye View of the World'' Bloomsbury ISBN 0747563004 Account of the co-evolution of plants and humans Thomas, B.A.: ''The evolution of plants and flowers'' St Martin's Press 1981 ISBN 0312272715 Walker, D. ''Energy, Plants and Man'' ISBN 1870232054 A presentation of the basic concepts of photosynthesis
Academic and Scientific books on Botany - Agrios, G. N. (1997). ''Plant pathology''. 4th ed. Academic Press. ISBN 012044564Blankenship, R.E. (2002) ''Molecular mechanisms of photosynthesis''. Blackwell Science ISBN 0632043210Briggs, D. & Walters, S. M. ''Plant variation and evolution'' 3rd ed. C.U.P. 1997 ISBN 0521459184Buchanan, B.B., Gruissem, W & Jones, R.L. (2000) ''Biochemistry & molecular biology of plants''. American Society of Plant Physiologists ISBN 0943088399 Crawford, R. M. M. (1989). ''Studies in plant survival''. Blackwell. ISBN 063201475X Crawley, M. J. (1997). ''Plant ecology''. Blackwell Scientific. ISBN 0632036397 Ennos, R and Sheffield, E ''Plant life'', Blackwell Science, ISBN 0865427372 Introduction to plant biodiversity Fitter, A & Hay, R ''Environmental physiology of plants'' 3rd edition Sept 2001 Harcourt Publishers, Academic Press ISBN 0122577663Howell, S. (1998) ''Molecular genetics of plant development'' Cambridge University Press 1998 ISBN 0521587840 Hull,R. (ed) ''Matthews' plant virology''. 4th ed. Harcourt Academic Press, October 2001. ISBN 0123611601 Lawlor, D.W. (2000) ''Photosynthesis'' BIOS ISBN 1859961576 Marschner, H. (1995). ''Mineral nutrition of higher plants''. 2nd ed. Academic Press. ISBN 0124735436 Matthews, R. E. F. ''Fundamentals of plant virology'' Academic Press,1992. Mauseth, J.D.: ''Botany : an introduction to plant biology''. Jones and Bartlett Publishers, ISBN 0763721344 - A first year undergraduate level textbook Nobel, P. S. ''Physiochemical and environmental plant physiology'' AcademicPress 1999. ISBN 0125200250 Raven, P.H, Evert R.H and Eichhorn, S.E: ''Biology of Plants'', Freeman. ISBN 1572590416 - A first year undergraduate level textbook Richards, P. W. (1996). ''The tropical rainforest''. 2nd ed. C.U.P. (Pbk) ISBN 0521421942 £32.50 Ridge, I. (2002) ''Plants'' Oxford University Press ISBN 0199255482 Salisbury, FB and Ross, CW: ''Plant physiology'' Wadsworth publishing company ISBN 0534151620 Stace, C. A. ''A new Flora (plants)flora of the British Isles''. 2nd ed. C.U.P.,1997. ISBN 0521589355 Strange, R. L. ''Introduction to plant pathology''. Wiley-VCH, 2003. ISBN 0470849738 Taiz, L. & Zeiger, E. (1998). ''Plant physiology''. 3rd ed. August 2002 Sinauer Associates. ISBN 0878938230Walter, H. (1985). ''Vegetation of the earth''. 3rd rev. ed. Springer. Whitmore, T. C. (1998) ''An introduction to tropical rainforestrain forests''. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198501471 Willis, K (2002) ''The evolution of plants'' Oxford University Press ISBN 0198500653 £22-99
External links - book users.rcn.com - Plant tissues, users.rcn.com - plant growth and users.rcn.com - the plant cell from users.rcn.com - Kimball's Biology Pagesbotany.org - Botanical Society of America: What is Botany?!www-saps.plantsci.cam.ac.uk - Science and Plants for Schools''textbook.wikipedia.org - A Study Guide to the Science of Botany'' ~ at ''Wikibooks''aspb.org - American society of plant biologists APSBplantsci.cam.ac.uk - Why study Plants? Dept of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridgeubcbotanicalgarden.org - Botany Photo of the DayDavid Attenborough - The Private Life of Plants Flora (plants)Flora and other catalogcatalogues or databasedatabases of plants*ou.edu - The Virtual Library of Botany* wikisource.org - List of major natural Plant Species in the UK, described in the National Vegetation Classification*kulak.ac.be - High quality pictures of plants and information about them from Catholic University of Leuven* fax.libs.uga.edu - Curtis's Botanical Magazine, 1790-1856 * fax.libs.uga.edu - The Trees Of Great Britain and Ireland, by Henry John Elwes & Augustine Henry, 1906-1913 * pflanzen-portal.com - Botanik-Datenbank (ger.) uni-wuerzburg.de - Teaching Documents about Botany Teaching documents, lecture notes and tutorials online: an annotated link directory.Biology-footer Category:Botany!*an:Botanicabg:Ботаник be:Батанікаbr:Botanik co:Botanicacs:Botanikacy:Botan egda:Botanikde:Botaniket:Botaa nikaes:Botánicaeo:Botanikoeu: Botanikafa:گیاهشناس یfr:Botaniquefur:Botanichegl: Botánicako:식물학ht:Etid? !plantid:Botaniia:Botanicait:Bo tanicahe:בוטניקהla:Bota nicalv:Botānikalt:Botanikalb: Botanikli:Plantkóndejbo:spask emk:Ботаникаnl:Plantku ndends:Botanikja:植物学no:B otanikknn:Botanikkpl:Botanikap t:Botânicaro:Botanicăru:Бо таникаsa:वनस्प ति? !विज्ञानंsco:Bo taniesimple:Botanysk:Botanikas l:Botanikafi:Kasvitiedesv:Bota niktl:Botanikath:พฤกษ าสตร์vi:Thực? vật !họctr:Botanikuk:Ботані каvo:Planavzh:植物學 DEBUG REDIRECT (botany)
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Websites
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Missouri Botanical Garden
Located on a 79 acre site in St. Louis, the Missouri Botanical Garden is world-renowned for its fundamental botanical research, horticultural display and education programs.
http://www.mobot.org/
Botanical.com
Articles, Message Board, Links, A Modern Herbal...
http://www.botanical.com/
American Botanical Council Online
Offers publications, information and education on herbal medicine. Also offers information about third party research.
http://www.herbalgram.org/
The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx NY
The garden includes 28 speciality gardens including the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, Everett Children's Adventure Garden, and a 40-acre never been clear cut forest.
http://www.nybg.org
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