The history of botany dates back to the 4th century B.C.E., with both Aristotle and Theophrastus playing a significant role in identifying and describing plants. Theophrastus, an ancient Greek philosopher, is considered the “Father of botany” due to his contributions to the field. The study of plants has been a subject of interest since ancient civilizations, with early botanical writings found in sacred Indian texts, Zoroastrian scriptures, and ancient texts.
Modern botany, specifically to Theophrastus (c. 371–287 BCE), is widely regarded as the father of botany. Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, invented and described many of its principles and is widely regarded as the “Father of Botany”. In Europe, the Renaissance of the 14th–17th centuries marked a scientific revival, during which botany gradually emerged from natural history as an independent field.
The origin of botany can be traced back to the Stone Age, Iron Age, or Industrial Revolution. The first original observations were made by Hildegard von Bingen, but Albert the Great is considered the rediscoverer of scientific botany. Botany appears to have originated as far back as the Stone Age, with early humans’ interest likely being simply to learn about different herbs and plants.
Botany has evolved over time, with various sub-fields emerging. To lead fruitful lives, we need to know the answer to three questions: 1) where did we come from? 2) why do we exist?
📹 History of botany
The history of botany examines the human effort to understand life on Earth by tracing the historical development of the discipline …
Who founded the botanist?
The Bruichladdich distillery, founded in 1881 by the Harvey brothers, was a significant part of the Glasgow whisky dynasty. However, it closed in 1994 due to poor management, prohibition, depression, and two world wars. In 2000, private investors, including Bruichladdich CEO Simon Coughlin, purchased the semi-derelict distillery, securing a unique opportunity for the first whisky distillation in 2001.
What is the oldest book on botany?
Historia Plantarum, written between 350 BC and 287 BC, is a book by Theophrastus that describes plants by their uses and attempts to classify them based on their reproduction. The manuscript was continually revised and remained unfinished upon Theophrastus’ death. The condensed style of the text suggests that Theophrastus used it as working notes for lectures rather than a book. The book was first translated into Latin by Theodorus Gaza in 1483, followed by a folio edition by Johannes Bodaeus in 1644.
The first English translation was made by Sir Arthur Hort in 1916. The Enquiry into Plants, a parallel text by Hort, is a 400-page original Greek book with about 100, 000 words. It was organized into ten books, with nine survive. The Enquiry into Plants, along with On the Causes of Plants, was an influential influence on science in the middle ages. Linnaeus called Theophrastus “the father of botany” due to the first scientific inquiries into plants and one of the first systems of plant classification.
Who founded modern botany?
Carl Linnaeus, born in 1707 in Råshult, Sweden, was a renowned botanist, physician, and zoologist. He is considered the father of modern taxonomy and one of the fathers of modern ecology. Linnaeus began his scientific studies of plants during medical school, believing the existing classification system was inadequate and difficult to use. He became Professor of Botany at Uppsala University in 1741 and continued to collect and classify plants, animals, and minerals.
In the 1740s, Linnaeus went on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. He was appointed chief royal physician in 1747 and knighted in 1758, taking the name Carl von Linné. At the time of his death, he was one of the most renowned scientists in Europe and was called the Prince of Botanists.
Linnaeus created a formal classification system for all living things, using genus and species to create binomial names. He received input from various botanists, who believed it was important to construct a comprehensive structure for recording plant type and use. His classification system grew and he spent his life searching for new plant species, documenting specimens, and experimenting with crop production.
Linnaeus’s works, including Systema Naturae, Philosophia Botanica, and Species Plantarum, are internationally accepted as the beginning of modern botanical nomenclature.
When was botany built?
Botany Town Centre, a large shopping mall and lifestyle center in Auckland, New Zealand, opened in May 2001. With over 200 stores across three complexes, it features restaurants and entertainment buildings like cinemas. Despite facing competition from nearby Sylvia Park shopping center in Mount Wellington, Botany Town Centre sees its town centre format as its strength. Its design elements, such as doctors’ premises and a library, make Botany more attractive. The centre has won awards for its design and was opened by Manukau City Council in 2004. The centre faces competition from nearby Sylvia Park shopping center in Mount Wellington.
Who is the founding father of botany?
Theophrastus, a Greek naturalist, is known as the Father of Botany, Zoology, and Embryology. He introduced agriculture and classified plants based on form, habitats, use, and growth patterns. He wrote ‘Historia Plantarum’ and ‘De causis Plantarum’, explaining their uses and growth. Aristotle is considered the Father of Biology and Zoology, developing the first classification system for plants and animals. He classified animals into blood and bloodless.
Linnaeus is known as the Father of Taxonomy, introducing binomial nomenclature, a system of naming and classifying organisms, including genus and species. These figures contributed significantly to the field of botany, biology, and zoology.
What is the origin of botanical?
Botany has its roots in the Stone Age, with early humans focusing on learning about edible and inedible herbs and plants. Written manuals for herb use in medicine existed in Mesopotamia and China around 3000 BC. The Greeks, including Aristotle, collected information about plants, but Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, developed more complex systems of plant classification.
Plants were exchanged and studied in early cultures, but it wasn’t until Columbus’ voyages in 1492 that we have records of plant exchange between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Columbus introduced spices from the East, such as capsicum peppers, orange, lemon, and lime seeds, and introduced crops like sugar cane to Santo Domingo and cucumbers to Haiti. This doubled food crop resources for people on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1603, Adriaan van de Spiegel published instructions on producing dried herbarium specimens, which led to a revolution in taxonomy, floristics, and systematics. Gaspard Bauhin followed suit, using a clear concept of genus and species in his botanical classification work. Bauhin’s work, published in 1623, later influenced Carolus Linnaeus.
Who first discovered botany?
Modern botany has its roots in Ancient Greece, with Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, being considered the “Father of Botany”. His works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, are considered the most important contributions to botanical science until the Middle Ages. Another significant work from Ancient Greece is De materia medica, a five-volume encyclopedia about preliminary herbal medicine written by Greek physician and pharmacologist Pedanius Dioscorides.
In the medieval Muslim world, important contributions include Ibn Wahshiyya’s Nabatean Agriculture, Abū Ḥanīfa Dīnawarī’s Book of Plants, and Ibn Bassal’s The Classification of Soils. In the early 13th century, Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati and Ibn al-Baitar wrote systematic and scientifically on botany.
Botanical gardens were founded in Italian universities in the mid-16th century, with the Padua botanical garden in 1545 being the first. These gardens continued the practical value of earlier “physic gardens” and supported the growth of botany as an academic subject. The first botanical garden in northern Europe was the University of Oxford Botanic Garden in 1621.
How old is botany?
Botany, originally a branch of herbalism, has its roots in ancient texts from India, Ancient Egypt, and China. Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, is considered the “Father of Botany” for his major works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants. Another significant work from Ancient Greece is De materia medica, a five-volume encyclopedia about preliminary herbal medicine written by Greek physician and pharmacologist Pedanius Dioscorides.
In the medieval Muslim world, significant contributions include Ibn Wahshiyya’s Nabatean Agriculture, Abū Ḥanīfa Dīnawarī’s Book of Plants, and Ibn Bassal’s The Classification of Soils. In the early 13th century, Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati and Ibn al-Baitar wrote systematic and scientifically on botany.
Botanical gardens were founded in the mid-16th century in Italian universities, with the Padua botanical garden in 1545 being the first. These gardens continued the practical value of earlier “physic gardens” associated with monasteries, where plants were cultivated for medicinal purposes. They supported the growth of botany as an academic subject, with lectures given about the plants grown in the gardens. The first botanical garden in northern Europe was the University of Oxford Botanic Garden in 1621.
When did botany originate?
Modern botany has its roots in Ancient Greece, with Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, being considered the “Father of Botany”. His works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, are considered the most important contributions to botanical science until the Middle Ages. Another significant work from Ancient Greece is De materia medica, a five-volume encyclopedia about preliminary herbal medicine written by Greek physician and pharmacologist Pedanius Dioscorides.
In the medieval Muslim world, important contributions include Ibn Wahshiyya’s Nabatean Agriculture, Abū Ḥanīfa Dīnawarī’s Book of Plants, and Ibn Bassal’s The Classification of Soils. In the early 13th century, Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati and Ibn al-Baitar wrote systematic and scientifically on botany.
Botanical gardens were founded in Italian universities in the mid-16th century, with the Padua botanical garden in 1545 being the first. These gardens continued the practical value of earlier “physic gardens” and supported the growth of botany as an academic subject. The first botanical garden in northern Europe was the University of Oxford Botanic Garden in 1621.
Who is the pioneer of botany?
Theophrastus of Eressus, also known as the “Father of Botany”, was a prominent botanist and student of Aristotle. He succeeded Aristotle as head of the Lyceum in Athens, an educational institution with a tradition of peripatetic philosophy. Aristotle’s special treatise on plants, θεωρία περὶ φυτῶν, is now lost, but his botanical observations are scattered throughout his writings. The Lyceum prided itself on systematic observation of causal connections, critical experimentation, and rational theorizing.
Theophrastus challenged the superstitious medicine of his time, rhizotomi, and the control over medicine exerted by priestly authority and tradition. Together with Aristotle, he tutored Alexander the Great, whose military conquests were carried out with scientific resources. His major botanical works were the Enquiry into Plants and Causes of Plants, which were lecture notes for the Lyceum. The Enquiry reads like a botanical manifesto.
What is the root of botany?
Roots are the absorbing and anchoring organs of vascular plants, producing lateral roots and buds but not leaves or flowers. They are simple axial organs with elongation in the root tip, typically 0. 004-0. 04 in. Wilson, Heimsch, Feldman, and Taylor’s research on roots in botany highlights the importance of understanding the structure and function of these organs in plant growth and reproduction.
📹 History of the Earth Part 1: Hadean, Archean, and Proterozoic Eons
If we are going to learn about the Earth, we had better start from the beginning! The Hadean, Archean, and Proterozoic eons will …
my GOSH, this is SAVING me!! As a second semester Geoscience student, I will be writing an exam on all of history of the earth and life in about 5 weeks. Having all of the stuff lined up like this in the right order and with just the most important events is really helping me to put it all into perspective. Thank you!!
Taking first year earth science. Just to note, I have learnt a lot about geology from understanding the origin of the solar system and the geological processes on Mars. Perhaps if you could cover those topics, it could bolster the content of the series, which I am thoroughly enjoying. This is great revision for me
Geology is deeply interesting. I’m a sucker for structures and systems of almost incomprehensible scale – geology is almost like a cosmology of our homeworld. Gigantic things happening over billions of years (a number already incomprehensible to our brain) is just an infinite source of fascination for me.
Our own planet’s history is a cautionary tale when searching for extraterrestrial life. The scale used in the article isn’t done to proportion, otherwise the topmost (and interesting) part would be small, and the part where life existed only as single celled organisms would be most of the picture. Out of more than 4.5 Billion years since Earth’s formation, complex life was pretty much absent for MOST of that time. If we fit the history of our planet into a 24-hour day, using 4.5 billion years as a round number, an hour represents 187.5 million years. A minute represents 3.125 million years, and a second represents 52,083.3 years. Complex animal life shows up after 9 pm (21:00). Hominids show up around 11:57 pm (23:57), and humans show up somewhere around three seconds before midnight (23:59:57), with modern technology showing up a few 1,000ths of a second before midnight. (1/1,000th of a second is roughly 52 years on this scale.) It took a long time to go from unicellular life to multicellular life. Obviously, evolution was chugging along, doing something during some 3 billion years – but we don’t know what was happening except the time when the oxidation event happened. I hope we can develop new techniques which will shed some light on this missing chapter of evolution. It is a bit like missing the invention of levers, wheels, and screws but then suddenly there are steam locomotives everywhere.
Excellent content! When I took collegiate geology courses in the mid 1970s everything before the start of the cambrian epoch was just called “Precambrian” although I do remember some discussion of what would become the hadean, archaean, and proterozoic. Cool stuff! Will watch the rest of this series as well!
7:07 the fact that the sky used to be orange and green is fascinating. I can understand that different atmospheric gasses could produce different sky colors makes sense, but how could it have been two different colors? What factors would have caused it to be orange, and what would have caused it to be green?
Theia hitting us did a number of very good things for Planet Earth. It’s thought to have almost doubled our core size, creating the long lasting dynamo that powers our magnetosphere. Without which, the Sun would have already ripped the atmosphere from our world. Mars, with a much smaller core, has already lost its air envelope because its dynamo shut down eons ago. It also gave us our Moon. Much larger in comparison to any other moon/planet combination in the solar system. It provides the stability we need for regular seasons. Mars also swings wildly due to the tugs of its 2 smaller moons.
i love you dave! Really! Your passion for teaching is really great! you also speak at the perfect pace, I really feel like I am comprehending everything you say. occasionally though, I will do a little rewind when things get a bit dense! It makes me so happy to see everyone else in the comments brimming with fervor and devotion for the pursuit of this info! So great…. 🙂
We often throw around numbers like a million or a billion but both are almost impossible to grasp without math. So here’s an attempt to bring them into something we can try to “get”. Fasten your seatbelt… Imagine you start counting at a rate of 3 numbers per second… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…. a manageable rate. Forget about saying numbers out loud but keep going at that rate without stopping for anything (like sleeping or eating). I’ve done the math. You’d get to one thousand after 330 seconds or five and a half minutes. You’d get to a million in 3.8 days. You’d get to a a billion in ten and a half years counting 3 numbers per second, 24 hours a day. Now consider that EVERY ONE of those numbers at 3 per second is a WHOLE YEAR. That’s a billion years. Do that three and a half times. That would take 36.6 years or about half a life time. Life has been evolving for that many years, each reproduction being a similar but subtly different version of its parent all competing for limited resources. Is it any surprise that after that amount of time, we see what we see around us now? If you dispute that life has been evolving for that long then you’re simply wrong (and undoubtedly religious). And while we’re at blowing our minds, we know that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 100 billion stars in it. Don’t bother to fine tune my claims, it’s irrelevant to this discussion and it’s approximately correct. The speed of light is so fast that it could circle the Earth 5 times in 1 second! At that unbelievable speed, the NEAREST STAR would take 4 years to get to!
I enjoyed this presentation. Thanks ! Could you talk about the last million years and how the earth’s temperature was mostly cold, with 10,000 year periods of hot weather every 100,000 years, and how the earth is in one of the 10,000 year hot periods just now, and how that fits in with global warming ?
I have a thought on the question of stromatolites surviving during snowball earth periods. Since the mats were made up of colonizing cyanobacteria dependent on warm shallow sea environments when those disappeared couldn’t the individual bacteria have “uncolonized” to survive the conditions then when conditions were again favorable re-colonized? I think given that we still have a small population in Shark Bay, Australia an experiment could be done or has it already? I always hear snowball earth theory’s detractors refer to the stromatolites and what happened to them because they’re still here. As an expert what do you think? Thanks as always for your great educational articles!
Yeah, appearently there are material of Theia inside the mantel as well. I wonder how the prensence of noble gases in the athmopsphere was in the early stages of earth’s history. They say that the athpmoshere contained mehtaine and ammoniac among other things, but I have never heard any hypothethesis about the noble gases.
Hello, I realy like your articles. I have one question regarding the used pictures: Are they all open source or do you have the right to use them or did you do them yourself? Iam asking because Iam thinking about doing a article series about astrobiology in german, but I realy have a hard time with problems like that.
I have a question. At around 2:30 the article transitions rather swiftly from an Earth mostly molten after the Theia collision to an Earth where oceans were forming. If the rock of the Earth was molten, presumaly any water that ws present in the proto-Earth was boiled off. My understanding was that the water arrived in comets, although that seems to have been brought into question by isotopic comparisons with Earth’s water and that of samples from comets. So, where did the water come from?
7:05 Why did the Great Oxidation Event turn the sky blue? I know that the colors of the sky are caused by the Rayleigh Scattering, which works independently of the gaseous substance because it is caused only by the fact that the molecules are much smaller than the wavelengths of visible light. CO2 and CH4 molecules are not so different in size from N2 and O2, so why was there a different sky color?
Holy shit! We just got hit with another ball of flaming rocks, and it kind of made a mess, which is- Now the Moon! Weather update, it’s raining rocks from outer space. Weather update, those rocks might have had water inside them, and now, there’s hot steam in the sky. Weather update, cooler temperatures today, and the floor is no longer lava. Severe flooding alert! The entire world is now an ocean
Very informative first part, easy for anyone with at least some interest in science to understand because it uses layman’s terms. When some terminology needs to be introduced, it’s first explained. I’m wondering how the “Snowball Earth” chapter of the Proterozoic era impacted life on Earth? Probably not that much since even under ice the oceans deep below would be warm.
I love how the precambrian is divided by the chemistry of the planet whereas everything since (which is like 1/4 or 1/3 the length of the precambrian) is divided into soooooooo many parts cuz it is done in accordance with life n the various mass extinctions that allowed for a back n forth between the eukaryotic life (mostly fungi, plants, n animals but mostly animals as u get closer n closer to modern day). Sad to think that some aliens may come along long after life goes extinct on the planet n if it is late enough there’s a chance that all the fossils may have alrdy been destroyed n they would only have the chemical signatures of geologic time to look at… would they realize that certain aspects of the world r only here cuz of life?
Your version of the collision between Theia and Earth 1.0 is outdated. Earth’s tilt could not have been created in that collision because neither body survived. Both bodies were completely vaporized in the merger (which consisted of at least two collisions–the glancing blow and ricochet, the failure of Theia’s remnant to achieve escape velocity after the first impact, followed by the boomerang second impact and possibly a third), forming a torus of super-heated vaporized rock, out of which the moon and Earth 2.0 slowly condensed from scratch over thousands of years. There was absolutely nothing left of the original Earth. Most of Theia’s mass went into the formation of Earth 2.0. Only a relatively small fraction of the total mass of both bodies went into the formation of the moon. And so both Earth 2.0 and its moon formed together, out of the same cloud of vapor. This much more elaborate scenario best explains the evidence. And were it not for Theia’s sacrifice in merging fully, Earth 1.0 would have lacked the mass to keep its core hot for this long and therefore maintain the dynamo that creates and maintains our magnetic field. Without Theia there is no Earth massive enough to provide a stable environment for life to evolve. Earth 1.0 would’ve ended up like Mars–cold and mostly geologically dead.
Interesting that the tilt of the Earth axis was caused by the collision with Thea. and that is has been more or less stable ever since. Any story or speculation of a drastic change of the axis can thereby sent to the realm of fantasy from the start.as it would take a simulair drastic event to cause a change. An changeevent that would wipe out all life on earth.
In particle physics there is one galactic spin equation for the formation of earth, water and carbon by Helium at the center of earth, gravity is a particle at gamma frequency. The sun projects Her gravity as a magnetic self identification and formation of the core planets, with earth being of the correct spin or centripetal force for a chain reaction of circadian cycles of cell formation from it’s core, starting with Archean organisms like extremophiles, thermophiles and cryophiles, zombie cell resurrectors. Which could be brought to the surface by Nuclear Fusion experiments being done today.
I know you’re not a Precambrian geologist so I’ll cut you some slack, but there’s one thing most geologists even get wrong. Especially all those Phanerozoic guys. The 21st century’s version of the “granite controversy” is “when did plate tectonics start?” Yes. You read that right. We are pretty confident (although there’s a couple of holdovers) there was no plate tectonics in the Hadean. The Archean becomes muddier and this is where the controversy lies. But that’s not a synonym for plate tectonics. PT has “rigid” requirements. We don’t really see the hallmarks of PT until 2.5Ga and manē back as far as 3.2Ga. There’s even some geologists who will argue modern PT either stopped or wasn’t a thing until 1.1Ga. It’s a great open question. At least you didn’t claim the glacial cycles during the Paleoproterozoic were a 300 million year snowball earth called the Huronian glaciation. Then o would have gotten triggered. That wasn’t a thing and I see ppl who should know better claiming that. And I know they got it from a shyte Wikipedia article called “Huronian glaciation”. There were ice sheets during that time but not for 300 million years and definitely no evidence for a snowball scenario. Also the Neoproterozoic snowball earth, is still a hypothesis. And seems to be losing ground. But that’s not my area. So. Whatever. Also. There’s no such thing as a Supereon. The North American Stratigraphic Code defines the naming of rock and time units. It doesn’t acknowledge it. Precambrian is just a waste bin holdover term.
Hmm some of this information is a few decades of date or lacking nuances though given this isn’t your field of specialty it shouldn’t be so surprising to see some errors. Much stronger evidence supports more complex lunar formation scenarios which result in a volatile rich Hadean. There is also evidence for thermodynamics driven changes in sea levels due to mineral hydrate formation and biological competition over resources driven by said sea level variations being better able to reproduce the timing of oxygenation events on Earth including much more general models for the triggered onset of glaciations constrained by molecular phylogenetics fossils and paleomagnetic data. I had tried to link sources for further exploration on the topic but the message keeps getting deleted.
I will watch this if you, as a professor, can tell me why smart people say “the earth”. Do you say “the Mars”? Do you say “the Jupiter”? No, we don’t. We know the language of English. You can say “the planet Earth”. But please stop say the earth. I don’t have my ged, never graduated from high school. But at least I know English. And my last job paid me $91.00 an hr.