Botany Introduction To Botany
Jan 20, 2016
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.