Botany - it is the systematic and scientific study of plants

- overs a lot of scientific discipline, such as chemistry, pathology, microbiology

Photochemistry - deals with chemical reaction, product and chemical derivatives in plants
as well as its effects on other biological species

Plant Anatomy and Morphology - which deals with structures, evolution, process and
mechanism of plant parts

Taxonomy - is the science of describing, naming, and classifying of organisms

plant molecular biology - study the structures and functions of important biological
molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids.

Plant biochemistry - is the study of the chemical interactions within plants, including the
variety of chemicals that plants produce.

Plant cell biology - encompasses the structures, functions, and life processes of plant cells;

plant anatomy - is microscopic plant structure (cells and tissues)

plant morphology - refers to the structures of plant parts such as leaves, roots, and stems,
including their evolution and development.

plant physiology - study such processes as photosynthesis and mineral nutrition to

understand how plants function.

Plant genetics - plant heredity and variation make up the specialty

Plant ecology - is the study of the interrelationships among plants and between plants and
their environment.

Plant systematics - encompasses the evolutionary relationships among different plant

groups.

Plant taxonomy - a subdiscipline of systematics, deals with the description, naming, and
classification of plants.

Paleobotany - is the study of the biology and the evolution of plants in the geologic past.

bryology - is the study of mosses and similar plants. Also, many areas of applied plant
biology exist,

agronomy (field crops and soils),

horticulture (ornamental plants and fruit and vegetable crops),

forestry (forest conservation and forest products such as lumber),

economic botany (plants with commercial importance)

IMPORTANCE OF PLANTS
- oxygen
- human nutirtion
- source of medicine
- materials such as clothes and paper
- absorption of carbon dioxide
- create habitat to organisms as their food and shelter

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF BOTANY

- 4th century B.C.E

Plant - multicellular, eukaryotic organisms that do not have sensory organs, and have, when
complete, root, stem, and leaves

During  the Pre-17th Century

4th Century B.C.E:
Both Aristotle and Theophrastus got involved in identifying plants and describing them.
Because of his contributions, Theophrastus was hailed as the “Father of botany” because
of his two surviving works on plant studies.  Although Aristotle also wrote about plants, he
received more recognition for his studies of animals.

Theophrastus -  books are two large botanical treatises, Enquiry into Plants, and On the
Causes of Plants, which constitute the first systemization of the botanical world and were
major sources for botanical knowledge during antiquity and the Middle Ages
-books on the subject have survived into modern times.
-he outlines he basic concepts of morphology, classification, and the natural history of plants

In A.D. 60:
Dioscorides - wrote De Materia Medica. This work described a thousand medicines, majority
of which came from plants

During the 17th  Century

1640:    Johannes van Helmont measured the uptake of water in a tree.

 
1665:    Robert Hooke invented the microscope. Because of this, Robert Hooke had the
chance to take a close look of a cell looks like. His description of these cells was published
in Micrographia

1674:    Anton van Leeuwenhoek saw a live cell under a microscope

1686:    John Ray published his book, Historia Plantarum. This became an important step
towards modern taxonomy

1694:     Rudolf Camerarius established plant sexuality in his book entitled De Sexu

Plantarum  Epistola

During the 18th  Century

1727:    Stephen Hales successfully established plant physiology as a science.  He published

his experiments dealing with the nutrition and respiration of plants in his publication
entitled Vegetable Staticks.   He developed techniques to measure area, mass, volume,
temperature, pressure, and even gravity in plants.
1758:  Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linne), the “Father of Taxonomy“, introduced the science

of taxonomy which deals with the identification, nomenclature, description and classification of

organisms (species).

1760s:   Botany became even more widespread among educated women who painted
plants, attended classes on plant classification, and collected herbarium specimens.
However, the focus of their study was on the healing properties of plants rather than plant
reproduction. Women began publishing on botanical topics and children’s books on botany
appeared (Mason 2016).

Later part of the eighteenth century

Joseph Priestley laid the foundation for the chemical analysis of plant metabolism.  Joseph
Priestley published his works as Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of
Air in 1774. The published paper demonstrated that green plants absorb “fixed air” (carbon
dioxide) from the atmosphere, give off “gas” or “dephlogisticated air”, which is now known as
oxygen, and that this gas is essential to animal life (Rook 1964).

During the 19th  Century

Early part of the nineteenth century: Progress in the study of plant fossils was made.

1818:    Chlorophyll was discovered.

1840:     Advances were made in the study of plant diseases because of the potato blight that
killed potato crops in Ireland. This led to the further study of plant diseases (Richman 2016).

1847:    The process of photosynthesis was first elucidated by Mayer. However, the exact
and detailed mechanism remained a mystery until the 1862.

1859:    Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution and adaptation, or more commonly
referred to as “survival of the fittest” (kenyon.edu 2016).
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace collaborated. Darwin soon published his
renowned and highly recognized book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection.

Around the same time, Gregor Mendel, was performing experiments on the inheritance
among pea plants. Gregor Mendel became the “Father of Genetics”.

1862:    The exact mechanism of photosynthesis was discovered when it was observed that
starch was formed in green cells only in the presence of light.

1865:    The results of Mendel’s experiments in 1865 showed that both parents should pass
distinct physical factors which code information to their offspring at conception. The offspring
then inherits one unit for each trait from each of his parents (Richman 2016)
Twentieth Century up to the Present

Early 20th Century: The process of nitrogen fixation, nitrification, and ammonification was

discovered.
1903:    The two types of chlorophyll—a and b were discovered.
1936:    Through his experiment, Alexander Oparin demonstrated the mechanism of the
synthesis of organic matter from inorganic molecules.  

1940s:   Ecology became a separate discipline.  Technology has helped specialists in botany

to see and understand the three-dimensional nature of cells, and genetic engineering of
plants. This had greatly improved agricultural crops and products (Arber 2010).

Up until the present, the study of plants continues as botanists try to both understand the
structure, behavior, and cellular activities of plants. This endeavor is in order to develop better
crops, find new medicines, and explore ways of maintaining an ecological balance on Earth to
continue to sustain both plant and animal life (Mason 2016).

SCOPE OF BOTANY

The functional aspects of plants are covered in plant physiology and the chemistry involved in
plants and plant processes in biochemistry. Plant diseases along with the control measures
are studied in plant pathology. Answers to questions like why organisms are similar and why
do they differ can be found in the study of heredity and variation under the heading genetics.
While information on the origin and evolution of plants can be obtained from organic evolu-
tion, the study on how an organism originates, develops and matures can be known in the
branch named embryology. Interaction of plants with the surroundings is a vital aspect of plan
life and such aspects are dealt in ecology or environmental biology. The knowledge about the
distribution of plants on earth’s surface is dealt under phytogeography. Knowledge on fossil
plants enables us to know about the extinct plants and their distribution in the geological time
table.
The scope of botany also includes the benefits derived from the plant world. The
entire living world, especially man, is directly or indirectly dependent on plants. More
information about the utility of plants can be known from the study of agriculture, horticulture,
arboriculture, olericulture, floriculture. Modern branches like biotechnology and genetic
engineering tell us how best the genomes of plants can be utilized and modified for the ben-
efit of mankind. Besides the basic necessities, plants are of aesthetic importance to man,
providing peace of mind. Botany, along with its allied branches, provides employment op-
portunities. It is a prerequisite for studying medicine or pharmacy. There is also enormous
employment scope in agriculture, horticulture, forestry, etc.

Ethnobotany is the study of the relationships between plants and people. When this
kind of study is turned to the investigation of plant-people relationships in past times, it is
referred to as archaeobotany or paleoethnobotany.

PLANTS AND SOCIETY

 Feed the world
 Understand fundamental life processes
 Utilize medicine and materials
 Understand environmental changes
CHARACTERISTICS OF PLANTS

Plants are highly organized - Cell to tissue to organ to organism to population to community
to ecosystem to biosphere

Plants take in and use energy - photosynthesis, cellular respiration

Plants respond to stimuli - plants adjust and responds to the changes in their environment
Plants grow and develop - growth- increase of mass and size, increase of number of cells
or increase in cell size
Development - changes from immature and mature

Plants reproduce - reproduction may be sexual and asexual

Plant DNA transmits information from one generation to the next - genes are units of
hereditary information
- DNA stores and carries important genetic information in cells

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS

Similarities between Plants and Animals

• They respond to stimuli.
• They breathe, reproduce, grow.
• They try to adapt according to changes in the environment.
• The basic unit of their structure is the eukaryotic cell.
• They both require air and water to survive.
• They grow and develop.
•
Differences between Plants and Animals
Basis for Plants Animals
Comparison

Meaning Plants are green in colour due to the Animals are the living organisms which feed on
presence of the chlorophyll and are the organic material and are known to have a
able to prepare their own food with specialized system in their body like the
the help of sunlight, water and air. nervous system, reproductive system, sense
They are known for providing oxygen organs, which make them unique from the other
to the atmosphere. forms of life.
Movement Plants do not have the ability to Animals can move from one place to
move from one place to another, as another freely, and exceptions are Sponges
plants are rooted into the ground, and Corals.
exceptions are Volvox and
Chlamydomonas.

Mode of Plants have chlorophyll, due to which Animals are the heterotrophs, as they depend
nutrition they have the capability to prepare on plants for their food, either directly or
their own food and are known as indirectly.
autotrophs. 
Storage of food  Plants do not have the digestive Animals have the proper digestive system which
system, and the storage of food support the food in digesting and absorbing
(carbohydrate) takes place in the form nutrition from it, the food (carbohydrate) is
of starch. stored in the form of glycogen.
Respiration  Plants take in carbon dioxide and Animals take in oxygen and release carbon
release oxygen into the atmosphere, dioxide into the atmosphere, which occurs
exchange of gases occurs through through lungs, gills, skin, etc.
stomata.
Cellular The cellular structure of plants The cellular structure of animals does not have
structure  contains the cell wall, chloroplast, cell walls, though other organelles like the tight
plasmodesmata, plastids and other junction, cilia are present.
different organelles.
Growth  The growth of the plants takes place The organs and organ system supports the
throughout the life, the meristematic growth and is definite.
system present in the tip of roots and
stems supports the growth.
Reproduction Reproduction of plants takes place Some lower animals like algae reproduce
asexually like by budding, vegetative asexually while higher animals reproduce
methods, spores, wind, or through sexually.
insects.
Response Plants show the response to stimuli They have proper nervous system and
like touch, light, though are less response to any stimuli in a fraction of seconds,
sensitive due to the absence of the so they are regarded as highly sensitive.
sense organs.