The history of botany began in the 4th century BC when Aristotle and Theophrastus identified and described plants. In the 1st century AD, Dioscorides wrote Materia Medica, which described medicines from plants and was used as a medical guide for over 1500 years. In the 17th century, important discoveries were made including Hooke inventing the microscope in 1665 and Ray publishing Historia Plantarum in 1686 establishing modern plant taxonomy. In the 18th century, Linnaeus further developed taxonomy and Priestley discovered that plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, laying the foundation for understanding photosynthesis. Understanding of plants continued to advance over the 19th and 20th centuries through study of plant structures,
The history of botany began in the 4th century BC when Aristotle and Theophrastus identified and described plants. In the 1st century AD, Dioscorides wrote Materia Medica, which described medicines from plants and was used as a medical guide for over 1500 years. In the 17th century, important discoveries were made including Hooke inventing the microscope in 1665 and Ray publishing Historia Plantarum in 1686 establishing modern plant taxonomy. In the 18th century, Linnaeus further developed taxonomy and Priestley discovered that plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, laying the foundation for understanding photosynthesis. Understanding of plants continued to advance over the 19th and 20th centuries through study of plant structures,
The history of botany began in the 4th century BC when Aristotle and Theophrastus identified and described plants. In the 1st century AD, Dioscorides wrote Materia Medica, which described medicines from plants and was used as a medical guide for over 1500 years. In the 17th century, important discoveries were made including Hooke inventing the microscope in 1665 and Ray publishing Historia Plantarum in 1686 establishing modern plant taxonomy. In the 18th century, Linnaeus further developed taxonomy and Priestley discovered that plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, laying the foundation for understanding photosynthesis. Understanding of plants continued to advance over the 19th and 20th centuries through study of plant structures,
The history of botany began in the 4th century BC when Aristotle and Theophrastus identified and described plants. In the 1st century AD, Dioscorides wrote Materia Medica, which described medicines from plants and was used as a medical guide for over 1500 years. In the 17th century, important discoveries were made including Hooke inventing the microscope in 1665 and Ray publishing Historia Plantarum in 1686 establishing modern plant taxonomy. In the 18th century, Linnaeus further developed taxonomy and Priestley discovered that plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, laying the foundation for understanding photosynthesis. Understanding of plants continued to advance over the 19th and 20th centuries through study of plant structures,
4th Century B.C: Both Aristotle and Theophrastus got involved in identifying plants and describing them. Because of his contributions, Theophrastus was hailed as the “Father of botany” .
A.D. 60: Dioscorides wrote Materia Medica. This work described a thousand medicines, majority of which came from plants. For 1500 years, it remained the guidebook on medicines in the Western world until the invention of the compound microscope.
1640: Johannes van Helmont measured the uptake of water in a tree.
1665: Robert Hooke invented the microscope. Because of this, Robert Hooke had the chance to take a close look of a cell looks like. His description of these cells was published in Micrographia
1686: John Ray published his book, Historia Plantarum.
1694: Rudolf Camerarius established plant sexuality in his book entitled De Sexu Plantarum Epistola , stated that: “No ovules of plants could ever develop into seeds from the female style and ovary without first being prepared by the pollen from the stamens, the male sexual organs of the plant“.
1727: Stephen Hales successfully established plant physiology as a science. He
published his experiments dealing with the nutrition and respiration of plants in his publication entitled Vegetable Statiks. He developed techniques to measure area, mass, volume, temperature, pressure, and even gravity in plants.
1758: Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linne), the “Father of Taxonomy“, introduced the science of taxonomy which deals with the identification, nomenclature, description and classification of organisms (species). His classification is based on the fact that species was the smallest unit and each species (taxon) is under a higher category. Later part of the eighteenth century: Joseph Priestley laid the foundation for the chemical analysis of plant metabolism. Joseph Priestley published his works “Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air “ in 1774. The published paper demonstrated that green plants absorb “fixed air” (carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere, give off “gas” or “dephlogisticated air”, which is now known as oxygen, and that this gas is essential to animal life.
Early part of the nineteenth century: Progress in the study of plant fossils was made.
1818: Chlorophyll was discovered.
1840: Advances were made in the study of plant diseases because of the potato blight that killed potato crops in Ireland .
1847: The process of photosynthesis was first elucidated by Mayer but the exact and detailed mechanism remained a mystery until the 1862.
1859: Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution and adaptation, or more commonly referred to as “survival of the fittest” . Darwin soon published his renowned and highly recognized book “On the Origin of Species .”
- Gregor Mendel was performing experiments on the inheritance among pea plants. Was later known as the “Father of Genetics”.
Early 20th Century: The process of nitrogen fixation, nitrification, and ammonification was discovered.
1903: The two types of chlorophyll—a and b were discovered.
1936: Alexander Oparin demonstrated the mechanism of the synthesis of organic matter from inorganic molecules.
1940s: Ecology became a separate discipline. Technology has helped specialists in
botany to see and understand the three-dimensional nature of cells, and genetic engineering of plants. This had greatly improved agricultural crops and products
Until the present, the study of plants continues as botanists try to understand both the structure, behavior and cellular activities of plants. This endeavor is to develop better crops, find new medicines, and explore ways of maintaining an ecological balance on Earth to continue to sustain both plant and animal life.
