Botany
Introduction To Botany
Biology, the study of life, is one of
the most interesting sciences
because it deals with things that
are alive. It is concerned with
mammals, amphibians, annelids,
mollusks, birds, insects, trees,
flowers, molds, and ferns and the
interdependence of each on the
other.
Two of the most important
groups of organisms, or living
things, are plants and animals.
The study of animals is called
zoology. The study of plants is
called botany. Botany will be
our study in this course of
science.
Botany deals with plants that are
so tiny that a very powerful
microscope is necessary to see
them. But it is also concerned with
the big sequoyia trees of California,
the great eucalyptus of Australia,
as well as with the dwarf willows of
the Arctic which are no more than
six inches in height.
Some branches of botany include:
• Agronomy--the study of crops.
• Olericulture and pomology--the study of fruits
and vegetables.
• Plant anatomy--the study of structure.
• Plant physiology--the study of function.
• Genetics--the study of plant DNA.
• Plant ecology--the relationship of plants to their
environment.
• Plant pathology--the study of plant diseases.
Botany also connects the fields mentioned
above. As in the changes that occur in a
leaf as it forms glucose from carbon dioxide,
water, and sunlight. Glucose, the basic food
substance of all organisms may then be
changed to wood, cotton, fiber, a variety of
resins and solvents, and the body structure
of organisms. The body of these organisms
may be fossilized to form coal, petroleum,
and natural gas.
Botany is about how people
studied, thought, experimented,
and then studied more until they
became great biologists. It is
the study that the English
scientist, Robert Hooke,
followed in observing the thin
slices of cork where he saw tiny
cavities that he called cells.
It is the path that the German
botanist, Mathias Schleiden,
followed to determine that all
living things are made of cells.
The botanist Gregor Mendel,
an Austrian monk, while working
with garden peas, discovered
the principles that control
inheritance.
The principles of botany allowed
Alexander Fleming to discover
penicillin from a culture of mold.
Each day, modern botanists make
new discoveries relating to plants.
It must be said, that it is plants
that feed the world. This alone
makes botany a most important
endeavor.
HISTORY OF BOTANY
Botany arose from the attempts of primitive men to obtain
their basic needs. Thus man's first botanical concerns
were undoubtedly food, shelter, and clothing.
Hieroglyphs and pictures painted
on ancient tombs showed that man
knew of plant lore. Assyrians and
Egyptians as long as 4000 B.C.
were practical plant scientists of a
high type. Ancient Chinese also
had a wide knowledge of plant
uses and cultivation.
In primitive America, the use of
plants was common. The Indians
cultivated corn, squash, beans, and
tobacco. Their medicine men used
various plants or plant parts in their
rituals. The native Americans knew
which roots were good to eat and
which plants to gather carefully and
store.
The actual beginnings of botany as a
science is usually accredited to the Golden
Age of Greece. From the practical use of
plants came a careful study of the nature of
plants. Medicinal uses ranked high with the
Greeks. Theophrastus, a pupil of Plato and
Aristotle, wrote books about plants in which
he addressed plant anatomy and
physiology, diseases, and uses. He used
exacting terms such as fiber, vessels, bark,
and pith.
During the long period of the
Dark Ages, little or no light was
thrown on the study of plants.
What little knowledge that was
gained is accredited to the
Arabians and their work with the
medicinal qualities of plants.
Beginning in the seventeenth century there
was an awakening in scientists' minds. The
structure of plants was investigated
carefully. In 1665, Robert Hooke, a British
scientist, published a paper called
"Micrographia," in which he described his
study of a very thin piece of cork in which he
had seen many tiny parts that reminded him
of the walls of a honeycomb. He called
these little parts cells. Apparently Hooke
failed to recognize that what he had seen
was only the walls of what we know today as
cells.
Now two other men enter the picture. An English
physician, Nehemiah Grew, began to study plant
parts and became know as the "Father of Modern
Plant Anatomy." Unknown to Grew, an Italian
physician and university professor, Marcello
Malpighi, was doing similar studies. Grew's
writing, titled The Anatomy of Vegtetables Begun,
was published by the Royal Society of London in
1672. At the same time, the Society received a
report of Malpighi's work on the same subject.
These two reports became standard reference
works for many years.
Even though 173 years were to pass before
another significant step was made in the study of
plant anatomy, not all was dormant in the minds of
scientists. In 1699 a boy was born in Darby,
Pennslyvania, John Bartram, who was to become
known as the "Father of American Botany." As a
boy in the American colonies, he was interested in
plants--not how they were constructed or how they
functioned, but the many different kinds of plants.
Since the few books he could come by were
written in Latin or Greek, he had to learn to read
those languages. While he had no University
training, he made very careful observations and
become a well-known figure not only in the
colonies but abroad as well.
Bartram constructed a botanical garden in what is
now a part of Philadelphia's city park system.
Here he began what were probably the first
experiments in the hybridization of plants.
One of Bartram's children, William,
accompanied his father in 1765 on
a famous journey up the St. Johns
River in Florida. They made
collections of plants, some of which
were sent to Philadelphia, and
others to English botanists. In
addition, they made observations of
the soil, trees and animals, and
mapped the St. Johns River.
Bartram corresponded extensively with
European scientists. So great was the fame
of John Bartram the Linneus called him "The
World's Greatest Natural Botanist."
Neither of the Bartrams were interested in
the systematic arrangement of plants (plant
taxonomy), but rather they were interested
in the collecting of various speciemens. In
fact, no one had figured out a way to easily
name and classify plants until Carl Linnaeus
appeared.
Linnaeus was born in Sweden in 1707. He didn't
do very well in the common school subjects of his
day--he was more interested in plants. He also
liked the physical sciences, such as physics.
When he was twenty years old, he entered the
University of Lund where he become a personal
friend of Dr. Strobaeous, Professor of Medicine.
The following year, he transferred to the University
of Upsala where the medical training was
supposed to be better. Subsequently he became
a good friend of the dean, Dr. Celsius, who
likewise was interested in botany. Linnaeus was
an enthusiastic botany student and before he
graduated was lecturing to large audiences.
Linnaeus earned a degree at the University of
Harderwijk in Holland, traveled extensively, then
returned to Sweden to practice medicine. He
finally won the position of Professor of Botany at
the University of Upsala and was very successful.
Here he attracted large numbers of students,
reorganized the botanical garden, which had fallen
into decay, and produced a number of fine
scientific books. His advice was sought by
governments as well as private individuals.
Eventually he was knighted and took the title of
von Linne.
• Linnaeus is most noted for his binomial system
of nomenclature, or two-part naming system. He
placed structurally similar organisms into a
group he called a species, similar species into a
larger group called a genus, and similar genera
into a family. Similar families were placed in an
order; similar orders, in a class; and similar
classes, in a phylum. Finally, Linnaeus placed
phyla into a plant or animal kingdom. Since,
many taxonomists have added a domain.
In Linnaeus’s system, the species
name or scientific name has two parts.
The first part is the genus and the
second part is the species or species
identifier. Because of these two part
names, the system is called the
Binomial System of Nomenclature.
The scientific names are latinized so
that they are the same in every
language. We placed in text, they are
underlined or printed in italics.
Today, taxonomists not only study
structure but also look at embryology,
DNA evidence, biochemical processes,
behavior, and distributions. Modern
taxonomists have also added
subdivisions to each category and
replaced the term phylum with the term
division in the plant kingdom. Currently
six kingdoms are designated in
classification.
A relatively new field of systematic
classification is called cladistics. Cladistics
uses certain features of organisms called
shared derived characters to establish
relationships. A derived character is a trait
that exists only in the group of organisms
being considered and not in other groups.
This method of classification can be used to
make cladograms to show ancestry.
A Dutch botanist, Du Humel continued the
study of plant parts. In 1831, Robert Brown,
a Scottish botanist, discovered the nucleus
of a plant cell while studying orchids. Hugo
von Mohl called attention to the fact that the
contents of a cell were alive. Two German
scientists, Matthias J. Schleiden, a botanist,
and Theodor Schwann, a zoologist, each
working indepenedently, laid the foundations
for the "Cell Theory" by stating that both
plants and animals are made of cells, cells
are the unit structure of living things, and
that all cells come from preexisting cells.
Economics of plant use has played a role in the
history of botany also. Luthur Burbank was born in
Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1849. From his
boyhood he was interested in nature and was
stimulated by the work of Charles Darwin. He
studied in the town academy. While gardening for
his widowed mother, he began to experiment with
the inherited traits of garden plants. One of his
earliest dicoveries was a potato he grew from
seeds found in a pod of the "Early Rose" variety.
He sold the best of the twenty-three seedlings
produced, and the dealer named it the "Burbank
Potato."
Burbank decided to move to the fertile lands
of California where he settled at Santa
Rosa. Here he worked, saved his money,
bought a nursery, and built a prosperous
business. He sold his nursery in 1893, then
set up an experimental farm at Sebastopol
where by selection and cross-pollenation, he
developed new vegetables, fruits, trees,
grasses, flowers, and grains. Other plants
developed by Burbank included the Shasta
daisy, a spineless cactus, and a white
blackberry.
One of our greatest scientists was
born a slave about 1859 near
Diamond Grove, Missouri. As a
baby, he and his mother were
stolen by night raiders; it is said his
master bought him back in
exchange for a race horse. He was
George Washington Carver,
whose many discoveries helped to
revolutionize agriculture in the
South.
As a boy, George was interested in plants
and rocks. He learned their names and
became known as a "plant doctor." He
entered Simpson College at Indianola, Iowa,
where he studied art; there he earned his
way by cooking, doing laundry, and serving
as a janitor. Later he entered Iowa State
College, from which he graduated in 1894.
Then he became an assistant botanist, took
charge of the greenhouse, and started a
fungus collection that brought him fame.
In 1896 he joined the staff at the
Tuskegee Institute in Alabama at
the invitation of the great black
educator Booker T. Washington.
There he spent the rest of his life.
His life savings of $33,000 went to
the George Washington Carver
Foundation For Agricultural
Research, established at Tuskegee
in 1940.
His great contribution to American life was in the
products he found that could be developed from
three common Southern crops. The peanut, he
found, could produce more than 300 products,
ranging from instant coffee to soap and ink. The
sweet potato produced 118 products, while pecans
accounted for 75 more. He found how to make
synthetic marble from wood shavings, dyes from
clay, and starch, gum, and wallboard from corn
stalks. It is said that he showed Southerners how
they could have a complete diet by eating only
peanuts and sweet potatoes. Carver died on
January 5, 1943, a highly honored and
distinguished American scientist.
Two scientists, Watson and Crick, did
an outstanding series of experiments
and calculations by which they arrived
at the double helix structure of the DNA
molecule and showed how the
molecule could reproduce itself and
direct the production of proteins. This
was one of the highlights in the
advancement of scientific knowledge,
and earned for these learned
gentlemen the 1962 Nobel Prize in
Medicine.
Alexander Fleming, a Scotsman,
served as a captain in the Royal
Medical Corps in France during
World War I. He found that some
of the antiseptics used actually
promoted wound infections. This
influenced Dr. Fleming to try to find
a bacteria fighter that would not be
harmful to human tissue. The
discovery happened by accident.
The story of how Dr. Fleming found his "wonder
drug" is a classic one. He had some culture plates
sitting on a window sill of his laboratory. In
examining them one morning, he noticed that
some mold had contaminated one and in the area
surrounding the mold, the bacteria was dying.
Why? He determined that the mold was a
common one that grew on overripe oranges and in
Roquefort cheese. It was Penicillin mold. He
decided to examine this mold further. He found
that he could grow it in test tubes; that it thrived
best in meat broth, bread, and cheese; and that it
harmed bacteria but did not damage white blood
cells.
He wrote a paper describing his discovery, but
unfortunately the medical community paid scant
attention to Dr. Fleming's report. They were not
yet ready to acknowledge that a mold could act as
a medicine and the sulfa drugs were receiving a lot
of the attention at that time.
Then Dr. Howard W. Florey, an Oxford
University pathologist, began working with
penicillin. The mold thrived in his test tubes and
one day he found some droplets on the suface of
the mold. He had found a new antibiotic. It proved
spectacular in many tests and was first used on a
large scale in Tunisia and Sicily during World War
II. It was soon saving millions of lives.
These men along with
countless others have laid the
foundation for our modern
botany. The millions of
discoveries that have been
made since sits on the
shoulders of these giants.