Scribd
Upload
42 views2 pages

History: Early Botany

Botany originated as herbalism, the study and use of plants for their medicinal properties. In ancient times, early works on botany and plant classifications were found in various sacred texts from India, China, and the Mediterranean world. However, modern botany traces its roots back to the works of Theophrastus in Ancient Greece. During the Middle Ages, important contributions were made in the Muslim world and medicinal gardens were established in Italian universities to cultivate plants. In the 16th century, botanical study advanced with the founding of botanical gardens, the development of plant classification systems, and the use of early microscopes to discover plant cells.

Uploaded by

terran2020
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
42 views2 pages

History: Early Botany

Botany originated as herbalism, the study and use of plants for their medicinal properties. In ancient times, early works on botany and plant classifications were found in various sacred texts from India, China, and the Mediterranean world. However, modern botany traces its roots back to the works of Theophrastus in Ancient Greece. During the Middle Ages, important contributions were made in the Muslim world and medicinal gardens were established in Italian universities to cultivate plants. In the 16th century, botanical study advanced with the founding of botanical gardens, the development of plant classification systems, and the use of early microscopes to discover plant cells.

Uploaded by

terran2020
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

History[edit]aazzqqwwaa

Main article: History of botany

Early botany[edit]

An engraving of the cells of cork, from Robert Hooke's Micrographia, 1665

Botany originated as herbalism, the study and use of plants for their medicinal properties. The early recorded history of botany includes many ancient writings and plant classifications. Examples of early botanical works have been found in ancient sacred texts from India dating back to before 1100 [7][8] [9] [7][10] BC, archaic Avestan writings, and works from China before it was unified in 221 BC. Modern botany traces its roots back to Ancient Greece, specifically toTheophrastus (c. 371287 BC), a student of Aristotle who invented and described many of its principles and is widely regarded in [11] the scientific community as the "Father of Botany". His major works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, constitute the most important contributions to botanical science until the Middle Ages, [11][12] almost seventeen centuries after they were written. Another work from Ancient Greece that made an early impact on botany is De Materia Medica, a fivevolume encyclopedia about herbal medicine written in the middle of the first century by Greek physician and pharmacologistPedanius Dioscorides. De Materia Medica was widely read for more than 1,500 [13] years. Important contributions from the medieval Muslim worldinclude Ibn Wahshiyya's Nabatean Agriculture, Ab anfa Dnawar's (828896) the Book of Plants, and Ibn Bassal's The Classification of

[6]

Soils. In the early 13th century, Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati, and Ibn al-Baitar (d. 1248) wrote on botany in a [14][15][16] systematic and scientific manner. In mid-16th century, "botanical gardens" were founded in a number of Italian universities the Padua botanical garden in 1545 is usually considered to be the first which is still in its original location. These gardens continued the practical value of earlier "physic gardens", often associated with monasteries, in which plants were cultivated for medical use. They supported the growth of botany as an academic subject. Lectures were given about the plants grown in the gardens and their medical uses demonstrated. Botanical gardens came much later to northern Europe; the first in England was the University of Oxford [17] Botanic Garden in 1621. Throughout this period, botany remained firmly subordinate to medicine. German physician Leonhart Fuchs (15011566) was one of "the three German fathers of botany", along with theologian Otto Brunfels (14891534) and physician Hieronymus Bock (14981554) (also called [18][19] Hieronymus Tragus). Fuchs and Brunfels broke away from the tradition of copying earlier works to make original observations of their own. Bock created his own system of plant classification. Physician Valerius Cordus (15151544) authored a botanically and pharmacologically important herbal Historia Plantarum in 1544 and a pharmacopoeia of lasting importance, the Dispensatorium in [20] 1546. Naturalist Conrad von Gesner (15161565) and herbalist John Gerard (1545c. 1611) published herbals covering the medicinal uses of plants. Naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (15221605) 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 [21] living plant tissue.

You might also like