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Botany: "Plant Biology" Redirects Here. For Other Uses, See and

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Botany

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


"Plant biology" redirects here. For other uses, see Botany (disambiguation) and Botanic.

The fruit of Myristica fragrans, a species native to Indonesia, is the source of two valuable spices, the red
aril (mace) enclosing the dark brown nutmeg.

Botany, also called plant science(s), plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life
and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises
in this field. 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".[1][2][3] 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 (in the strict sense) study approximately 410,000 species of land
plants of which some 391,000 species are vascular plants (including ca 369,000 species
of flowering plants),[4] and ca 20,000 are bryophytes.[5]
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. Thes

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