Botany, also called plant science(s) or plant biology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who specializes in this field of study. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek word βοτάνη (botanē) meaning "pasture", "grass", or "fodder"; βοτάνη is in turn derived from βόσκειν (boskein), "to feed" or "to graze". Traditionally, botany has also included the study of fungi and algae by mycologists and phycologists respectively, with the study of these three groups of organisms remaining within the sphere of interest of the International Botanical Congress. Nowadays, botanists study approximately 400,000 species of living organisms of which some 260,000 species are vascular plants and about 248,000 are flowering plants.
Botany originated in prehistory as herbalism with the efforts of early humans to identify – and later cultivate – edible, medicinal and poisonous plants, making it one of the oldest branches of science. Medieval physic gardens, often attached to monasteries, contained plants of medical importance. They were forerunners of the first botanical gardens attached to universities, founded from the 1540s onwards. One of the earliest was the Padua botanical garden. These gardens facilitated the academic study of plants. Efforts to catalogue and describe their collections were the beginnings of plant taxonomy, and led in 1753 to the binomial system of Carl Linnaeus that remains in use to this day.
Botany is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that has been published since 1951 by NRC Research Press. It was established in 1951 as Canadian Journal of Botany, the continuation of Canadian Journal of Research, Section C: Botanical Sciences. It features research articles and notes in all segments of botany.
Botany was selected as one of the DBIO 100, the 100 most influential journals in biology and medicine over the last 100 years, as voted by the BioMedical & Life Sciences Division of the Special Libraries Association on the occasion of its centennial.
The editor is Christian Lacroix (University of Prince Edward Island).
Botany is the scientific study of plant life.
Botany may also refer to:
Is it time to accept
Is it time to smile and rest
Is that all there is
Is it time to believe
In a theory of destinies
If it's true that the end
is nothing but
"this"
I trust it
Time to say "I'm only human"
You think it might be too late
But it's never even been time
Realize now that the ice
is meant to melt
And no one feels sorry
For the good times
Is it time to accept
Shall we smile and rest
Is it meant to be like this
If it's meant to be like this