Chapter 1: What is Plant Biology?
Principle
a "useful" generalization
J. B. van Helmont
a Flemish physician and chemist who was the first to demonstrate that plants do not have the same nutritional needs as animals.
"Species Plantarum" by Carolus Linnaeus
a book filled with thousands of plant names and other information on them
"Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
a book noted with 500 new toxic chemicals put to use annually as pesticides in the United States alone; how these chemicals and other pollutants are having a negative impact on all facets of human life and the environment
Paleobotany
a from of plant anatomy involving the study of plant fossils
Theory
a group of generalizations (principles) that help understand something; we reject or modify theories only when new principles increase our understanding of a phenomenon
Science (as a whole)
a search of knowledge of the natural world; it involves the observation, recording, organization, and classification of facts and more importantly what is done with those facts
Variable
a specific aspect being changed
Hypothesis
a tentative, unproven explanation for something that has been observed; it may not be the correct explanation- testing will determine whether it is correct or not and the results of any experiment designed to test the hypothesis must be repeatable and capable of being duplicate by others
Control
an aspect that is not changed
Cladistics
analysis of shared features
Data
bits of information
Plant Taxonomists
botanists who specialize in the identifying, naming, and classifying of plants
Biomass
collective dry weight of living organisms
Plant Physiology
concerning plant function
Plant Anatomy
concerning the internal structure of plants
Nehemiah Grew
described the structure of wood more precisely than any of his predecessors (1628-1711)
Marcello Malpighi
discovered various tissues in stems and roots (1628-1694)
Economic botany and Ethnobotany
focus on practical uses of plants and plant products, had their origin in antiquity as humans discovered, used, and eventually cultivated plants for food, fiber, medicines, and other purposes
Gregor Mendel
founded the science of heredity
Plant Taxonomy
involves describing, naming, and classifying organisms
Scientific Procedure
involves the process of experimentation, observation, and the verifying or discarding of information, chiefly through inductive reasoning from known samples
Plant Systematics
it is the science of developing methods for grouping organisms
Biomes
large communities of plants and animals that occur in areas with distinctive combinations of environmental features
Botanists
scientists who study plants
Closed System
self-supporting arrangement
Pteridologists
specialize in the study of ferns
Bryologists
study mosses and plants with similar life cycles
Cell Biology (Ctyology)
the science of cell structure and function
Plant Geography
the study of how and why plants are distributed where they are
Botany
the study of plants
Plant Morphology
the study of the form and structure of plants
Plant Ecology
the study of the interaction of plants with one another and with their environment
Genes
units of heredity that are found mostly within the nuclei of cells