Phytonomy

For other meanings, see Botany (disambiguation)

Botany is the scientific studyof 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, development, diseases, ecology, and evolutionof plants.

Image:US long grain rice.jpg

Scope and importance of botany

As with other life forms in biology, plant life can be studied from different perspectives, from the molecular, geneticand biochemicallevel through organelles, cells, tissues, organs, individuals, plant populations, and communitiesof 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 be animals. Some of these "plant-like" organisms include fungi(studied in mycology), bacteriaand 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 in introductory botany courses.

So why study plants? Plants are a fundamental part of life on earth. They generate the oxygen, food, fibres, fuel and medicine that allow higher life forms to exist. Plants also absorb carbon dioxide, a significant 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 foodsand other fruitand 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 securityfor future generations, for example through plant breeding. Not all plants are beneficial to humans, weedsare a considerable problem in agricultureand botany provides some of the basic science in order to understand how to minimise their impact. Ethnobotanyis the study of this and other relationships between plants and people.

Image:Mendel.png

Understand fundamental life processes

Plants are convenient organisms in which fundamental life processes (like cell divisionand protein synthesisfor example) can be studied, without the ethical dilemmas of studying animals or humans. The genetic laws of inheritancewere discovered in this way by Gregor Mendel, who was studying the way peashape is inherited. What Mendel learnt from studying plants has had far reaching benefits outside of botany. Additionally, Barbara McClintockdiscovered 'jumping 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 medicinaland recreational drugs, like cannabis, caffeine, and nicotinecome directly from the plant kingdom. Aspirin, which originally came from the barkof willowtrees, is just one example. There may be many novel cures for diseasesprovided by plants, waiting to be discovered. Popular stimulantslike coffee, chocolate, tobacco, and teaalso come from plants. Most alcoholic beveragescome from fermentingplants such as hopsand grapes.

Plants also provide us with many natural materials, such as cotton, wood, paper, linen, vegetable oils, some types of rope, and rubber. The production of silkwould not be possible without the cultivation of the mulberryplant. Sugarcaneand other plants have recently been put to use as sources of biofuels, which are important alternatives to fossil fuels.

Understand environmental changes

Plants can also help us understand changes in on our environment in many ways.

• Understanding habitat destructionand species extinctionis dependent on an accurate and complete catalogue of plant systematicsand taxonomy.
• Plant responses to ultraviolet radiationcan help us monitor problems like the ozone depletion.
• Analysing pollendeposited by plants thousands or millions of years agocan help scientists to reconstruct past climates and predict future ones, an essential part of climate changeresearch.
• Recording and analysing the timing of plant life cyclesare important parts of phenologyused in climate-change research.
• Lichens, which are sensitive to atmospheric conditions, have been extenisvely used as pollutionindicators.

In many different ways, plants can act a bit like the 'miners canary', an early warning system alerting us to important changes in our environment. In addition to these practical and scientific reasons, plants are extremely valuable as recreationfor millions of people who enjoy gardening, horticulturaland culinaryuses of plants every day.

History

Early botany (before 1945)

Image:Botany.jpg Among the earliest of botanical works, written around 300 B.C., 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 Dioscoridesprovides important evidence on Greek and Roman knowledge of medicinal plants.

In 1665, using an early microscope, Robert Hookediscovered cellsin cork, a short time later in living plant tissue. The German Leonhart Fuchs, the Swiss Conrad von Gesner, and the British authors Nicholas Culpeperand John Gerardpublished herbals that gave information on the medicinal uses of plants.

Modern botany (since 1945)

A considerable amount of new knowledge today is being generated from studying model plantslike Arabidopsis thaliana. This mustard weed was one of the first plants to have its genomesequenced. The sequencing of the rice genome and a large international research community have made ricethe de facto cereal/grass/monocotmodel. Another grass species, Brachypodium distachyonis also emerging as an experimental model for understanding the genetic, cellular and molecular biology of temperate grasses. Other commercially important staple foods like wheat, maize, barley, rye, milletand soybeanare also having their genomes sequenced. Some of these are challenging to sequence because they have more than two haploid(n) sets of chromosomes, a condition known as polyploidy, common in the plant kingdom. 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
• Botanical gardenand List of botanical gardens
• Dendrochronology
• List of domesticated plants
• Ethnobotany
• Flowersand List of flowers
• Forestry
• Herbs
• Horticulture
• List of botanical journals
• List of botanists
• List of botanists by author abbreviation
• List of publications in biology
• Paleobotany
• Plant community
• Plant sexuality
• Soil science
• Trees
• Vegetablesand List of vegetables
• Vegetation

References

• U.S. Geological Survey. National Biological Information Infrastructure: Botany

Further reading

Popular sciencestyle books on Botany

• Bellamy, DBellamy on Botany, ISBN 0563106662an 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.
• Pakenham, 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 0747563004Account of the co-evolutionof plants and humans
• Thomas, B.A.: The evolution of plants and flowers St Martin's Press 1981ISBN 0312272715
• Walker, D. Energy, Plants and Man ISBN 1870232054A presentation of the basic concepts of photosynthesis

Academic and Scientific books on Botany

• Buchanan, 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 0865427372Introduction to plant biodiversity
• Fitter, A & Hay, R Environmental physiology of plants 3rd edition Sept 2001 Harcourt Publishers, Academic Press ISBN 0122577663
• Lawlor, D.W. (2000) Photosynthesis BIOS ISBN 1859961576
• 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
• 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 PressISBN 0199255482
• Salisbury, FB and Ross, CW: Plant physiology Wadsworth publishing company ISBN 0534151620
• Stace, C. A. A new floraof 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 0878938230
• Walter, H. (1985). Vegetationof the earth. 3rd rev. ed. Springer.
• Willis, K (2002) The evolution of plants Oxford University Press ISBN 0198500653£22-99

External links

plant growthand the plant cellfrom Kimball's Biology Pages

• Biology News Headlines,
• Botanical Society of America: What is Botany?
• Science and Plants for Schools
• Teaching Documents about BotanyTeaching documents, lecture notes and tutorials online: an annotated link directory.
• American society of plant biologists APSB
• Why study Plants? Dept of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge
• Botany Photo of the Day
• David Attenborough- The Private Life of Plants

Floraand other plant cataloguesor databases

• The Virtual Library of Botany
• List of major natural Plant Species in the UK, described in the National Vegetation Classification
• High quality pictures of plants and information about themfrom Catholic University of Leuven
• Curtis's Botanical Magazine, 1790-1856
• The Trees Of Great Britain and Ireland, by Henry John Elwes & Augustine Henry, 1906-1913
• Botanik-Datenbank(ger.)

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytonomy Wikipedia article Phytonomy.