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Botany and its fields of Study
WHEN we speak of the Science of Botany to the ordinary man or woman the idea which usually arises in the mind is that of the study of flowers, and as a natural result Botany is conceived by the uninitiated as a science dealing with garden and wayside plants, and the student of Botany as a kind of glorified gardener who knows the proper names of plants and how to grow them. Such a conception is, of course, entirely wrong. Botany is something very much wider than that, for the study of garden flowers is the province of the horticulturist, who may, or may not, be a botanist. Again the knowledge of the names of wild plants is the special work of a small section of botanists, and is not by any means the whole subject.
Natural Science may be divided into the Pure Sciences and the Applied Sciences, the former being concerned with the science of the world in which we live, the latter with the economic and practical applications in which the natural sciences can be employed. The four primary natural sciences are Biology, Geology, Chemistry and Physics. Biology is the science which studies life in all its aspects. Its scope is vast, for it includes not only the study of animals and plants but that of man as well. For practical convenience Biology is divisible into the study of animals and the study of plants. The former we designate as Zoology, the latter as Botany.
Botany, therefore, is the study of life as found in the plant kingdom. In order to appreciate the vast size of this problem, we should realize in the first place that the Flowering Plants only form quite a small proportion of the types of plants known to exist at the present time. Included in the term plants are, of course, the Club lVlosses, the Ferns, the Mosses and the Seaweeds, and also a very large assemblage of organisms much less obviously plants, such as the Fungi and Bacteria, and countless different kinds of microscopic organisms which float about in the waters of any pool or stream. Our subject, however, does not end there, for we know from a study of the rocks that many kinds of ancient plants, unlike those of the present day, can be discovered buried in the various geological strata, and a special branch of Botany, Palaeobotany, deals exclusively with this section of plants.
Having thus, in very general terms, indicated the range of organisms which are included in the plant kingdom, let us consider the ways in which they may be studied. We may in the first place consider their external form, or we may investigate their internal structure. Thus at the outset we come up against two of the main divisions of the subject, Morphology and Anatomy, which are themselves closely related to the study of plant evolution or Phylogeny. There are many others: the study of the functions of plants is termed Physiology, to which may be added the study of the chemistry of plant life, Biochemistry; then there is the study of their development, Embryology; the study of classification, Taxonomy; and the study of inheritance, Genetics. We may inyestigate their mode of living, Bionomics, or the relationship between the plant and its habitat, Ecology. Then, again, the investigation of certain groups of plants has become frequently a separate sub-science, and \ye speak of the study of seaweeds as Algology; of fungi as Mycology; of plant diseases as Plant Pathology; of bacteria as Bacteriology. There are also certain economic branches of the subject which are more familiar to the man-in-the-street :
Horticulture, the study of garden plants; Forestry, the study of trees; Agricultural Botany, the study of crop-plants; and Pharmaeognosy, the study of drug-plants; all of which form part of Economic Botany.
This, then, may be said to be an outline of the general scope of the science of Botany, which is certainly very different from the popular conception. Moreover, it is important to realize that each of these sub-sciences is dependent upon the others, and that a clear understanding of anyone field is impossible without a fundamental knowledge of the essential features of the whole subject. In fact, it is equally true to say that a proper knowledge of Botany cannot be obtained without at the same time gaining an elementary knowledge of the essential features of the whole of Natural Science, that is of the allied sciences of Chemistry, Zoology, Geology and Physics. So dependent are the sciences upon one another, and at the same time so extremely complex has each of them become, that one .of the greatest problems which besets a scientist at the present day is how he can become familiar with the details of his own particular section, while, at the same time, remaining acquainted with the current position of the allied branches of science. One of the greatest dangers which we are facing at the present time is the tendency to over-specialization, that is to say, the cultivation of an intensive but exclusive knowledge of a very small part of science with the inevitable result of losing touch with the whole. Such an outlook may advance our knowledge in some particular field of research, but what science needs more than anything else is to be able to take stock of herself, to see whither all modern research is leading, and what advantage, if any, the human race has received in return for all the energy which has been expended. Only by being capable of understanding the fundamental facts in different branches of a science and of various sciences, can such an estimate be made, and it is very important that at the outset of his career a student should attempt to provide himself with the necessary knowledge, for very soon he may be swept up in the train of specialization and fall into danger of losing his sense of proportion.
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| Botany and its field of study |
Natural Science may be divided into the Pure Sciences and the Applied Sciences, the former being concerned with the science of the world in which we live, the latter with the economic and practical applications in which the natural sciences can be employed. The four primary natural sciences are Biology, Geology, Chemistry and Physics. Biology is the science which studies life in all its aspects. Its scope is vast, for it includes not only the study of animals and plants but that of man as well. For practical convenience Biology is divisible into the study of animals and the study of plants. The former we designate as Zoology, the latter as Botany.
Botany, therefore, is the study of life as found in the plant kingdom. In order to appreciate the vast size of this problem, we should realize in the first place that the Flowering Plants only form quite a small proportion of the types of plants known to exist at the present time. Included in the term plants are, of course, the Club lVlosses, the Ferns, the Mosses and the Seaweeds, and also a very large assemblage of organisms much less obviously plants, such as the Fungi and Bacteria, and countless different kinds of microscopic organisms which float about in the waters of any pool or stream. Our subject, however, does not end there, for we know from a study of the rocks that many kinds of ancient plants, unlike those of the present day, can be discovered buried in the various geological strata, and a special branch of Botany, Palaeobotany, deals exclusively with this section of plants.
Having thus, in very general terms, indicated the range of organisms which are included in the plant kingdom, let us consider the ways in which they may be studied. We may in the first place consider their external form, or we may investigate their internal structure. Thus at the outset we come up against two of the main divisions of the subject, Morphology and Anatomy, which are themselves closely related to the study of plant evolution or Phylogeny. There are many others: the study of the functions of plants is termed Physiology, to which may be added the study of the chemistry of plant life, Biochemistry; then there is the study of their development, Embryology; the study of classification, Taxonomy; and the study of inheritance, Genetics. We may inyestigate their mode of living, Bionomics, or the relationship between the plant and its habitat, Ecology. Then, again, the investigation of certain groups of plants has become frequently a separate sub-science, and \ye speak of the study of seaweeds as Algology; of fungi as Mycology; of plant diseases as Plant Pathology; of bacteria as Bacteriology. There are also certain economic branches of the subject which are more familiar to the man-in-the-street :
Horticulture, the study of garden plants; Forestry, the study of trees; Agricultural Botany, the study of crop-plants; and Pharmaeognosy, the study of drug-plants; all of which form part of Economic Botany.
This, then, may be said to be an outline of the general scope of the science of Botany, which is certainly very different from the popular conception. Moreover, it is important to realize that each of these sub-sciences is dependent upon the others, and that a clear understanding of anyone field is impossible without a fundamental knowledge of the essential features of the whole subject. In fact, it is equally true to say that a proper knowledge of Botany cannot be obtained without at the same time gaining an elementary knowledge of the essential features of the whole of Natural Science, that is of the allied sciences of Chemistry, Zoology, Geology and Physics. So dependent are the sciences upon one another, and at the same time so extremely complex has each of them become, that one .of the greatest problems which besets a scientist at the present day is how he can become familiar with the details of his own particular section, while, at the same time, remaining acquainted with the current position of the allied branches of science. One of the greatest dangers which we are facing at the present time is the tendency to over-specialization, that is to say, the cultivation of an intensive but exclusive knowledge of a very small part of science with the inevitable result of losing touch with the whole. Such an outlook may advance our knowledge in some particular field of research, but what science needs more than anything else is to be able to take stock of herself, to see whither all modern research is leading, and what advantage, if any, the human race has received in return for all the energy which has been expended. Only by being capable of understanding the fundamental facts in different branches of a science and of various sciences, can such an estimate be made, and it is very important that at the outset of his career a student should attempt to provide himself with the necessary knowledge, for very soon he may be swept up in the train of specialization and fall into danger of losing his sense of proportion.
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