Located in south west London, Kew is a renowned scientific organization devoted to the study of plants and fungi.
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"Plants have evolved this amazing array of chemicals that can serve as defense compounds to protect themselves from pathogens, herbivores, and insects," said Quave, who's also trained in medical ethnobotany, the study of plants for medicinal use in various cultures.
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The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology.
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The idea of "scientific" gardens used specifically for the study of plants dates back to antiquity.
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Ecology or oecology, the study of plants in relation to each other and to their environment.
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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to botany: Botany - biological discipline which involves the study of plants.
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Dioscorides’ Materia Medica, c. 1334 copy in Arabic, describes medicinal features of various plants. Pharmacognosy is the study of plants or other natural sources as a possible source of drugs.
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New York: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved 16 September 2012 from Biodiversity Heritage Library. The organizing principles of the society were the enhancement of the study of plants in North America and to professionalize such efforts.Smocovitis, Vassiliki Betty (2006).
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Cristóvão da Costa or Cristóbal Acosta and Latinized as Christophorus Acosta Africanus (c. 1525 c. 1594) was a Portuguese doctor and natural historian. He is considered a pioneer in the study of plants from the Orient, especially their use in pharmacology.
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She graduated with a B.A. in 1904 and a M.A. in 1905. . Her Master's research was on the leaf anatomy of Subantarctic Islands species, and involved the study of plants brought back from an expedition in 1903 by Leonard Cockayne.
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Under the instruction and encouragement of the elder Mrs. King, Louisa King developed both an academic interest in the study of plants as well as a practical enjoyment of the hands-on work of gardening: amending soils, pruning, and controlling pests.
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Naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605) was considered the father of natural history, which included the study of plants. In 1665, using an early microscope, Polymath Robert Hooke discovered cells, a term he coined, in cork, and a short time later in living plant tissue.
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The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species is a book by Charles Darwin first published in 1877. Introduction by R.B. Freeman It is the fifth of his six books devoted solely to the study of plants (excluding The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication).
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Simpson married Dorothy Jane Stephen, daughter of Cecil Stephen, on 23 September 1914. They had four children: Scott Simpson (1915–1981), Professor of Geology at Exeter University; Arthur Simpson (British scientist specialised in the study of plants and sea animals); Oliver Simpson (a National Physical Laboratory physicist); and Jean Simpson, a medical doctor.
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The long-term effects of moderate absinthe consumption in humans remain unknown, although herbs traditionally used to produce absinthe are reported to have both painkillingK.C. Rice and R.S. Wilson, 1976 J. Med. Chem. 19: 1054–1057. Cited by and antiparasiticA study of plants in central Italy reported some veterinary use of wormwood as an anthelmintic for cows. properties.
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Gram was the son of Frederik Terkel Julius Gram, a professor of jurisprudence, and Louise Christiane Roulund. He studied at the University of Copenhagen, and was an assistant for botany to the zoologist Japetus Steenstrup. His study of plants introduced him to the basics of pharmacology and the use of the microscope. Gram began medical school in 1878 and graduated in 1883.
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Raspail was one of the founders of the cell theory in biology. He coined the phrase omnis cellula e cellula ("every cell is derived from a [preexisting] cell") later attributed to Rudolf Karl Virchow. He was an early proponent of the use of the microscope in the study of plants. He was also an early advocate of the use of antiseptic(s) and better sanitation and diet.
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Guy-Crescent Fagon, the king's physician and botanist, noticed Sébastien Vaillant and made him his secretary. He was therefore able todevote himself to the study of plants for which he obtains unlimited access to the King's Garden of which Fagon appoints him director. Fagon himself was a teacher and sub-demonstrator The sub-demonstrator, according to Boerhaave (), had more privileges than the demonstrator. at the King's Garden.
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Among many other complex empirical recordings of elevation-specific data, the table included a detailed biodistribution. This biodistribution mapped the specific distributions of flora and fauna at every elevation level on the mountain. Humboldt's study of plants provides an example of the movement of Humboldtian science away from traditional science. Humboldt's botany also further illustrates the concept of equilibrium and the Humboldtian ideas of the interrelationship of nature's elements.
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In the study of plants' photorespiration, the labeling of atmosphere by oxygen-18 allows us to measure the oxygen uptake by the photorespiration pathway. Labeling by gives the unidirectional flux of uptake, while there is a net photosynthetic evolution. It was demonstrated that, under preindustrial atmosphere, most plants reabsorb, by photorespiration, half of the oxygen produced by photosynthesis. Then, the yield of photosynthesis was halved by the presence of oxygen in atmosphere.
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There are also several easily accessed riverside areas within the city limits for rock-hopping, swimming, and picnicking. Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden is located adjacent to the city in Henrico County. Founded in 1984, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden is located on and features a glass conservatory, a rose garden, a healing garden, and an accessible-to-all children's garden. The Garden is a public place for the display and scientific study of plants.
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The same study also showed an isotopic signal of agricultural water being recharged into the giant alluvial aquifer in California's Central Valley. Finally, the isotopic composition of soil water is important for the study of plants. Below the water table, the soil has a relatively constant source of water with a certain isotopic composition. Above the water table, the isotopic composition of soil water is enriched by evaporation until a maximum at the surface.
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Beck served as president of the Australian Archaeological Association from 1989 to 1990. Beck has received multiple Australian Research Council grants, a Carrick Grant, Environment Trust NSW Grant and a Partnership Industry Research Grant. Beck has edited books including Gendered Archaeology with Jane Balme, and Plants in Australian Archaeology. Plants in Australian Archaeology has been described as having accomplished "a great deal" in bringing the study of plants in Australian archaeology to the fore.
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A large number of scientists from various other fields contributed to the study of plants and animals in India. Among these were some who worked in interdisciplinary areas. Foremost among these was J. B. S. Haldane, the British scientist who encouraged field biology in India on the basis that it was useful while at the same time requiring low investment unlike other branches of science. He was among the first to popularise quantitative approaches to biology in India.
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The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland--Edinburgh, Dawyck, Logan and Benmore-- each with its own specialist collection. The RBGE's living collection consists of more than 13,302 plant species, (34,422 accessions)Rae D. et al. (2012) Catalogue of Plants 2012.
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Chairs in botany, within medical faculties were being established in European universities throughout the sixteenth century in reaction to this trend, and the scientific approach of observation, documentation and experimentation was being applied to the study of plants. Otto Brunfels published his Herbarium in 1530, followed by those of Jerome Bock (1539) and Leonhard Fuchs (1542), men that Kurt Sprengel would later call the “German fathers of botany”. These men all influenced Dodoens, who was their successor.
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She was educated at home by her mother and found delight in the study of plants, animals and insects. She assisted her father in his research projects at the Deception Bay residence. Mackerras attended the Brisbane Girls Grammar School and was awarded prizes in mathematics. She enrolled in the University of Queensland and graduated in 1918 with B.Sc., and in 1930 with M.Sc.. From 1918 to 1920, she held the Walter and Eliza Hall fellowship in enomic biology.
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He was a member of the Council of the Governor of Bombay, and briefly acted as governor in 1895. From 1894 to 1895 he also served as president of Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Birdwood took an interest in the study of plants and natural history. Birdwood was a president of the botanical department of the Bombay Natural History Society and published a catalogue of the plants of Matheran along with the pioneering Indian botanist Jayakrishna Indraji.
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While at Cambridge he published several works, including Libellus de re herbaria, in 1538. He spent much of his leisure in the careful study of plants which he sought for in their native habitat, and described with an accuracy hitherto unknown in England. In 1540, he began travelling about preaching until he was arrested. After his release, he went on to study medicine in Italy, at Ferrara and Bologna, from 1540 to 1542 and was incorporated M.D. at one of these universities.
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Fielding was the fifth child and only son of Henry Fielding of Myerscough House, near Garstang, Lancashire. Being of a delicate constitution he was shut out from adopting a profession, but devoted himself to the study of plants and the formation of a rich herbarium, which his ample means permitted. In 1836 he bought the herbarium of Dr. Steudel, and the next year the Prescott collection, consisting of twenty-eight thousand plants. He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1838.
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Although during this time Zürich was home to some great botanists, he realized his specific talent was not in taxonomy but rather the study of plants through the fundamental sciences of chemistry, physics, and mathematics. When he needed to choose a field for his thesis, he decided upon the Department of General Botany and Plant Physiology. Influenced by his teacher, he used methods of crystallography to find a common species of crystals in plant cells. He received a degree as doctor of natural sciences in 1924.
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Botany is a natural science concerned with the study of plants. The main branches of botany (also referred to as "plant science") are commonly divided into three groups: core topics, concerned with the study of the fundamental natural phenomena and processes of plant life, the classification and description of plant diversity; applied topics which study the ways in which plants may be used for economic benefit in horticulture, agriculture and forestry; and organismic topics which focus on plant groups such as algae, mosses or flowering plants.
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Botany is study of plants, including algae, fungi, lichens, mosses, ferns, conifers and flowering plants. Collections at the Academy, which are housed in the Philadelphia Herbarium (PH), the oldest institutional herbarium in the New World, include some of the oldest and most important botanical collections in the Americas. Notable early collectors include Benjamin Smith Barton, Constatine Rafinesque, Thomas Meehan, Thomas Nuttall, and Fredrick Pursh. Today, the herbarium contains approximately 1.5 million specimens of vascular plants, fungi, lichens, algae, and fossil plants, 40,000 of which are types.
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The first farm by European settlers on the Australian continent, at Farm Cove, was established in 1788 by Governor Phillip. Although that farm failed, the land has been in constant cultivation since that time, as ways were found to make the relatively infertile soils more productive. The Botanic Garden was founded on this site by Governor Macquarie in 1816 as part of the Governor's Domain. Australia's long history of collection and study of plants began with the appointment of the first Colonial Botanist, Charles Fraser, in 1817.
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The European Renaissance brought expanded interest in both empirical natural history and physiology. In 1543, Andreas Vesalius inaugurated the modern era of Western medicine with his seminal human anatomy treatise De humani corporis fabrica, which was based on dissection of corpses. Vesalius was the first in a series of anatomists who gradually replaced scholasticism with empiricism in physiology and medicine, relying on first-hand experience rather than authority and abstract reasoning. Via herbalism, medicine was also indirectly the source of renewed empiricism in the study of plants.
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God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons." From that point on, he determined to "be true to [himself]" and follow his dream of exploration and study of plants. Photo of Muir by Carleton Watkins, circa 1875 In September 1867, Muir undertook a walk of about from Kentucky to Florida, which he recounted in his book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. He had no specific route chosen, except to go by the "wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find.
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Pier Antonio Micheli (December 11, 1679 – January 1, 1737) was a noted Italian botanist, professor of botany in Pisa, curator of the Orto Botanico di Firenze, author of Nova plantarum genera iuxta Tournefortii methodum disposita. He discovered the spores of mushrooms, was a leading authority on cryptogams, and coined several important genera of microfungi including Aspergillus and Botrytis. Micheli was born in Florence in 1679. According to a short description from the libraries of Harvard University, he taught himself Latin and began the study of plants at a young age under Bruno Tozzi.
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Eduard Ludvik Pospichal (13 June 1838 - 24 April 1905) was an Austrian botanist of Czech parentage born in Litomyšl in Bohemia (today in the Czech Republic). Pospichal was a teacher at a secondary school in Trieste. He was the author of Flora des Oesterreichischen Küstenlandes (1897–99), a comprehensive treatise on flora found in regions on and around the northeast Adriatic coast. Also, he was also the author a study of plants found along the banks of the Cidlina and Mrdlina Rivers in Bohemia, titled Flora des Flussgebietes der Cidlina und Mrdlina (1881).
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Orto Botanico Pellegrini-Ansaldi The Orto Botanico delle Alpi Apuane "Pietro Pellegrini" (), also known as the Orto Botanico di Pian della Fioba, is a nature preserve and botanical garden located at 900 meters altitude in Pian della Fioba, Massa, Province of Massa-Carrara, Tuscany, Italy. It is operated by the town in collaboration with the Università della Toscana. The garden was established in 1966 for the study of plants indigenous to the Apuane Alps and dedicated to botanist Pietro Pellegrini (1867–1957). It was officially opened to the public in 1981.
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The garden was established in 1978-79 as an outdoor classroom for the study of plants. Today its collection includes Acacia saligna, Acer campestre, Acer pseudoplatanus, Aesculus hippocastanum, Albizia julibrissin, Albizia lophanta, Araujia sericifera, Betula alba, Carpinus betulus, Catalpa bignonioides, Cedrus atlantica, Celtis australis, Ceratonia siliqua, Chorisia insignis, Corylus avellana, Diospyros kaki, Eriobotrya japonica, Erythrina crista-galli, Feijoa sellowiana, Gleditschia triacanthos, Hovenia dulcis, Juglans regia, Macfadyena unguis-cati, Maclura pomifera, Magnolia grandiflora, Ostrya carpinifolia, Passiflora antioquiensis, Persea americana, Picea abies, Pinus pinea, Populus nigra, Prunus avium, Psidium guajava, Quercus pedunculata, Salix alba, and Ulmus campestris.
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The Royal Society of London published two volumes of his botanical and zoological works in 1675 and 1679. Another edition followed in 1687, and a supplementary volume in 1697. In his autobiography, Malpighi speaks of his Anatome Plantarum, decorated with the engravings of Robert White, as "the most elegant format in the whole literate world." His study of plants led him to conclude that plants had tubules similar to those he saw in insects like the silk worm (using his microscope, he probably saw the stomata, through which plants exchange carbon dioxide with oxygen).
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George Marshall Woodrow (14 February 1846 - 8 June 1911) was a British botanist who made contribution to the study of plants in Western India, particularly in the Northern Western Ghats. He served as a gardener at Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, in England from 1865 onward. In 1872 he traveled to India to be in charge of Ganeshkind Experimental Garden at Pune and public gardens of Poona. He worked as a lecturer at R. College of Science Poona in 1879 and was the Director of Botanic Survey of Western India 1893-9.
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326 For example, Wilbur Jackman created an outline of nature study with "life and its phenomena" which examined how the study of plants and animals would consist of zoology and botany (under biology), physics, chemistry, meteorology, astronomy, geography, geology, and mineralogy.Kohlstedt, "Nature, Not Books", p. 334 Lucretia Crocker along with women's clubs and other help in the Boston area, created a "Teachers' School of Science" in Back Bay at the New Museum of the Boston society. Along with an Ellen Swallow Richards, Crocker created a mineralogy course for teachers.
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Beck was appointed a lecturer at the University of New England in 1986, within the Department of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology. A major area of research of Beck has been on plants and gender archaeology, drawing on archaeological fieldwork, ethnographic study, and archaeological science. Beck co-edited the first book to deal with archaeobotanical studies in Sahul, Plants in Australian Archaeology, with Anne Clarke and Lesley Head. Her significant contributions to archaeology are the study of plants and gender in archaeology, place studies, work on archaeology and Higher Education, and service to the archaeological profession.
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Ecological systems are studied at several different levels, from the scale of the ecology of individual organisms, to those of populations, to the ecosystems and finally the biosphere. The term population biology is often used interchangeably with population ecology, although population biology is more frequently used in the case of diseases, viruses, and microbes, while the term population ecology is more commonly applied to the study of plants and animals. Ecology draws on many subdisciplines. Ethology is the study of animal behavior (particularly that of social animals such as primates and canids), and is sometimes considered a branch of zoology.
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Collecting became a discipline, specifically the Kunst- und Wunderkammern (cabinets of curiosities) outside of Italy and the study of naturalia became widespread through many social strata. The great botanists of the sixteenth century were all, like Lobelius, originally trained as physicians, who pursued a knowledge of plants not just for medicinal properties, but in their own right. Chairs in botany, within medical faculties were being established in European universities throughout the sixteenth century in reaction to this trend, and the scientific approach of observation, documentation and experimentation was being applied to the study of plants. These were also turbulent times.
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Her studies and tutoring stimulated her own interest in science, and her fondness for children led her to apply her knowledge to early education. She published First Book of Botany, designed to Cultivate the Observing Powers of Children (New York, 1870) and Second Book of Botany (1873). These were intended to promote the systematic study of plants as objects in place of the object lessons in general use. She prepared an enlarged edition of Henslow's Botanical Charts (1873), translated from the French Quatrefages' Natural History of Man (1875), and contributed to the Popular Science Monthly and other periodicals.
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Later, the study of plants, their properties, and life conditions became a passion. After graduating he worked as a professional in Talca, in the pharmacy of Guillermo Kuschel, the distinguished trade union and industrial director, one of the founding partners of the Laboratorio Geka. Later Gunckel returned to Valdivia to serve as the pharmaceutical head of the Railroad Zone IV, work which was later suppressed. Gunckel moved to Corral, where he started a pharmacy, but the near-virgin landscape that surrounded this port, rich in forests, ferns, and grasses, made him a collector of plant specimens.
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The Cedar Valley Arboretum and Botanic Gardens was founded in 1996 and is located directly East of Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo, Iowa. The mission of the Arboretum is to enhance the quality of life for all individuals through horticulture. The vision of the Arboretum is to serve as a compelling public resource for the study of plants, a leader in environmental stewardship, a cultural center for the community, and a showcase of Iowa's rich heritage with the land. The Arboretum is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, independent organization and supported by its volunteer base and community support.
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Oswald Heer was educated as a clergyman at Halle and took holy orders, and he also graduated as Doctor of Philosophy and medicine. Early in life his interest was aroused in entomology, on which subject he acquired special knowledge, and later he took up the study of plants and became one of the pioneers in paleobotany, distinguished for his researches on the Miocene flora. In 1851 Heer became professor of botany in the university of Zürich, and for some time he was the director of what is now the Old Botanical Garden in that city. He directed his attention to the Tertiary plants and insects of Switzerland.
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The Renaissance saw an immense increase in botanic study and publication. Perhaps the most celebrated botanical work ever printed was written by Leonard Fuchs (a physician who gained his initial fame by finding a cure for the English sweating sickness) ‘De historia stirpium’, Basel, 1542 (or, Notable commentaries on the history of plants) was first published in 1542. A massive, folio volume, this landmark work describes in Latin some 497 plants, and is illustrated by over 500 woodcuts based upon first-hand observation, this provided the first comprehensive study of plants. The Historia is undoubtedly Fuchs' greatest work, and is without equal among the herb books of that era.
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The first edition of Mattioli's work appeared in 1544 in Italian. There were several later editions in Italian and translations into Latin (Venice, 1554), French (Lyon, 1561), Czech, (Prague, 1562), and German (Prague, 1563). In addition to identifying the plants originally described by Dioscorides, Mattioli added descriptions of some plants not in Dioscorides and not of any known medical use, thus marking a transition from the study of plants as a field of medicine to a study of interest in its own right. In addition, the woodcuts in Mattioli's work were of a high standard, allowing recognition of the plant even when the text was obscure.
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McKenna said of the sculpture concept "The idea of the Knight was as a protective inspirational character to the local residents, a fearless champion, leaping out of the old castle (vale) into a new unknown future, supported by the pillars of the people, who form the bedrock of the community, supporting the regeneration." Project Wagtail led to the creation of a further three pieces of public art. A sculpture named Trees was erected by Jo Naden in 2002 following a study of plants with pupils at the local schools. At one of the highest points on Park Lane, Angelo Bordonari's Memories of Castle Vale stands in the form of three stones.
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The science of botany was long established by Leonardo's time, a treatise on the subject having been written as early as 300 BCE.E.g. Theophrastus, On the History of Plants. Leonardo's study of plants, resulting in many beautiful drawings in his notebooks, was not to record in diagramatic form the parts of the plant, but rather, as an artist and observer to record the precise appearance of plants, the manner of growth and the way that individual plants and flowers of a single variety differed from one another. Study of sedge One such study shows a page with several species of flower of which ten drawings are of wild violets.
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Weir was an amateur naturalist who pursued interests in entomology, the study of insects, ornithology, the study of birds, and botany, the study of plants. His initial interest was in Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and the first paper he ever published, in 1845, was on the discovery of the scarce forester moth, Jordanita (Adscita) globulariae, in Lewes. He was noted for his work collecting and setting very small Lepidoptera until an accident in 1870 resulted in the loss of the top half of his left thumb, which prevented him from setting very small insects. He kept birds in an aviary in his garden where he conducted experiments on predation of insects by birds.
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Between 1860 and 1868, the life and work of Charles Darwin from Orchids to Variation continued with research and experimentation on evolution, carrying out tedious work to provide evidence of the extent of natural variation enabling artificial selection. He was repeatedly held up by his illness, and continued to find relaxation and interest in the study of plants. His studies of insect pollination led to publication of his book Fertilisation of Orchids as his first detailed demonstration of the power of natural selection, explaining the complex ecological relationships and making testable predictions. As his health declined, he lay on his sickbed in a room filled with inventive experiments to trace the movements of climbing plants.
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Botany (Greek - grass, fodder; Medieval Latin ' – herb, plant) and zoology are, historically, the core disciplines of biology whose history is closely associated with the natural sciences chemistry, physics and geology. A distinction can be made between botanical science in a pure sense, as the study of plants themselves, and botany as applied science, which studies the human use of plants. Early natural history divided pure botany into three main streams morphology-classification, anatomy and physiology – that is, external form, internal structure, and functional operation. The most obvious topics in applied botany are horticulture, forestry and agriculture although there are many others like weed science, plant pathology, floristry, pharmacognosy, economic botany and ethnobotany which lie outside modern courses in botany.
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Charles Joseph Chamberlain, Ph.D. (February 23, 1863 – February 5, 1943) was an American botanist, born near Sullivan, Ohio, and educated at Oberlin College and at the University of Chicago, where he earned the first Ph.D. in that institution's botany department, and where he was a long-time employee, becoming associate professor in 1911. He is known for pioneering the use of zoological techniques on the study of plants, particularly in the realm of microscopic studies of tissues and cells; his specialty was the cycad. He made contributions to the Botanical Gazette, and was the author of Methods in Plant Histology (1901) and The Morphology of Angiosperms (1903). In collaboration with John M. Coulter, he wrote The Morphology of Gymnosperms (1910).
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Having a great interest in the study of plants, he recognised that certain plants grew wherever the minerals responsible for the formation of alum were present in the soil. From this he recognised that the rock from which the alum was made was similar to that abundant in several areas in and around his cousin's Guisborough estate, in present day Redcar and Cleveland. In 1606-07 Sir Thomas went into partnership with Sir David Foulis and with Lord Sheffield and Sir John Bourchier, obtaining a monopoly for 31 years of manufacture in northern England.The early ownership history of the mine at Guisborough is summarized in William Page (ed.), 'Parishes: Guisborough', A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2 (London, 1923), pp. 352-365.
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Elizabeth also had interests and hobbies such as gardening, needlework, painting, and reading, in particular religious literature. Her interests in needlework and gardening also provide the “occupational backdrop” that would be helpful for her in practicing herbalism. Through her enjoyment from gardening, she found there were links to gardening and her study of plants and medicine. She discovered that some plants, in particular herbs, could potentially be used for medicinal purposes.Rebecca Laroche, Medical Authority and Englishwomen’s Herbal Texts 1550-1650, 128. Elizabeth found hobbies, especially needlework to be a “kind of preventative cure” for depression. Elizabeth took herbalism seriously as her career while needlework was her outlet for relaxation and a “kind of calming medicine.”Rebecca Laroche, Medical Authority and Englishwomen’s Herbal Texts 1550-1650, 130.
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Collecting became a discipline, specifically the Kunst- und Wunderkammern (cabinets of curiosities) outside of Italy and the study of naturalia became widespread through many social strata. The great botanists of the sixteenth century were all, like Clusius, originally trained as physicians, who pursued a knowledge of plants not just for medicinal properties, but in their own right. Chairs in botany, within medical faculties were being established in European universities throughout the sixteenth century in reaction to this trend, and the scientific approach of observation, documentation and experimentation was being applied to the study of plants. Clusius' influence was a key factor in all these developments with his pioneering and influential publications, and introduction of hitherto unknown exotic plants to the Low Countries.
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Botany involves the recording and description of plants, such as this herbarium specimen of the lady fern Athyrium filix-femina. The study of plants is vital because they underpin almost all animal life on Earth by generating a large proportion of the oxygen and food that provide humans and other organisms with aerobic respiration with the chemical energy they need to exist. Plants, algae and cyanobacteria are the major groups of organisms that carry out photosynthesis, a process that uses the energy of sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugars that can be used both as a source of chemical energy and of organic molecules that are used in the structural components of cells. As a by-product of photosynthesis, plants release oxygen into the atmosphere, a gas that is required by nearly all living things to carry out cellular respiration.
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The first botanical garden in the United States, Bartram's Garden, was founded in 1730 near Philadelphia, and in the same year, the Linnaean Botanic Garden at Philadelphia itself. President George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, all experienced farmers, shared the dream of a national botanic garden for the collection, preservation and study of plants from around the world to contribute to the welfare of the American people paving the way for establishing the US Botanic Garden, right outside the nation's Capitol in Washington DC in 1820. In 1859, the Missouri Botanical Garden was founded at St Louis; it is now one of the world's leading gardens specializing in tropical plants. This was one of several popular American gardens, including Longwood Gardens (1798), Arnold Arboretum (1872), New York Botanical Garden (1891), Huntington Botanical Gardens (1906), Brooklyn Botanic Garden (1910), International Peace Garden (1932), and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (1938).
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Because organisms are functionally inseparable from the environment in which they live and because their structure and function cannot be adequately interpreted without knowing some of their evolutionary history, the study of natural history embraces the study of fossils as well as physiographic and other aspects of the physical environment".G. A. Bartholomew, "The Role of Natural History in Contemporary Biology", Bioscience 36 (1986): 324–329 A common thread in many definitions of natural history is the inclusion of a descriptive component, as seen in a recent definition by H.W. Greene: "Descriptive ecology and ethology".H.W. Greene, "Organisms in nature as a central focus for biology", Trends in Ecology & Evolution 20 (2005):23–27 Several authors have argued for a more expansive view of natural history, including S. Herman, who defines the field as "the scientific study of plants and animals in their natural environments.
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Caspar Bauhin (1550–1624) The revival of learning during the Renaissance reinvigorated the study of plants and their classification. From about 1400 CE European expansion established Latin as the common language of scholars and it was adopted for biological nomenclature. Then, from about 1500 CE, the publication of herbals (books often illustrated with woodcuts describing the appearance, medicinal properties, and other characteristics of plants used in herbal medicine) extended the formal documentation of plants and by the late 16th century the number of different plant kinds described in Europe had risen to about 4,000. In 1623 Gaspard Bauhin published his Pinax theatre botaniciCaspar Bauhin's Pinax theatre botanici Retrieved: 2010-08-05 an attempt at a comprehensive compilation of all plants known at that time: it included about 6000 kinds. The combined works of a German physician and botanist Valerius Cordus (1515–1544 CE) which were published in 1562 included many named "cultivars" including 30 apples and 49 pears, presumably local German selections.
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Darwin Online : "The course pursued by the radicle in penetrating the ground must be determined by the tip; hence it has acquired such diverse kinds of sensitiveness. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed, and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs, and directing the several movements." even though plants neither possess actual brains nor nerves. Irrespective of whether this neurological metaphor is correct or, more generally, the modern application of neuroscience terminology and concepts to plants is appropriate, the Darwinian idea of the root tip of plants functioning as a "brain-like" organ (together with the so-called "root-brain hypothesis") has experienced an ongoing revival in plant physiology. While plant "neurobiology" focuses on the physiological study of plants, modern plant cognition primarily applies a behavioural/ecological approach.
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