INTRO BOTANY

• Botany is the study of plant structure, function, and evolution, with specialties including morphology, physiology, systematics, and genetics
• Morphology focuses on plant form, structure, and development, while physiology studies processes within a plant like nutrition and growth
• Systematics involves the identification, classification, and evolutionary relationships of plants, often using reproductive parts for stability
• Genetics in botany studies inheritance, variation, and mechanisms controlling characteristics' transmission from parents to offspring
• Various subdivisions of botany include Phycology (study of algae), Mycology (study of fungi), Bacteriology (study of bacteria), Plant Pathology (study of plant diseases and their control), and Plant Ecology (study of environmental influences on plant communities)
• Food plants include grains like rice, wheat, and corn, legumes like soybean and peanut, root crops like cassava and sweet potato, stem crops like Irish potato and sugar cane, fruits like banana and coconut, leaves like cabbage, and forages like alfalfa
• Lumber from forest trees is used for fuel, furniture, houses, cabinets, and paper making
• Fiber plants like cotton and jute provide natural fibers, while rayon is a cellulosic fiber spun from dissolved cellulose
• Beverage plants include coffee, tea, and black pepper for making drinks, and cinnamon and cloves for flavorings
• Medicinal plants like opium poppy for morphine, marijuana as a stimulant, quinine for malaria, chrysanthemum for insecticide, and antibiotics like penicillin
• Other useful plants are tobacco for cigarettes and rubber from the latex of Hevea brasiliensis
• In morphology If the emphasis is upon internal structural development, this study is called

  anatomy
• Physiology-

  The study of processes that take place within a plant
• Legumes -Produce a fruit which is a capsular pod that opens along two sides when ripe
• Legumes -Soybean (Glycine soja)-world’s most abundantly grown seed legume in US and China , Peanut (Arachis hypogaea)- inexpensive source of protein
• Rootcrops-Fleshy storage root, have abundant starch but low in protein
• Cassava (Manihot esculenta)- A rootcrop that grows well in tropical lowlands and is one of the world’s most important foods in poor and less developed areas. 30% starch and contain very little protein or fat.
• Sweet potato (Ipomea batatas)- a rootcrop that is similar to cassava in nutritional content, grows well also in tropical lowlands.
• Beets (Beta vulgaris)- a rootcrop that are eaten directly and some are used as livestock feed
• Stem Crops -Common “Irish potato” (Solanum tuberosum) –as important as cassava in temperate countries - Not a root; it is an enlarged underground stem consisting primarily as storage tissue containing about 25 % starch.

  - Sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum) – plant of humid tropical lowlands. Its sugar-rich juice is pressed out of the cut canes, evaporated and refined.
• Leaves -Cabbage (Brassica oleracea) – most important plant le aves that form significant part of human diet Edible leaves are low in calories but serve as sources of bulk, vitamins and minerals
• What are the uses of plants by humans

  food plants, lumber, fiber plants, beverage plants, medicinal plants
• examples under food plants

  grains, fruit, rootcrops, stemcrops, fruit, leaves, forages
• • their end walls or cross walls have a large number of small pores called sieve plates - living cells that do not have nuclei - their walls are not lignified.

  fiber
• examples under fiber plant

  fiber, cotton, jute, rayon
• examples under beverages plants

  coffee (Coffea arabica), tea (Thea sinensis), Black pepper (Piper nigrum), cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanimcum), cloves (Eugenia cryophyllata)
• examples under medicinal plants

  Opium Poppy (Papaver Somniferum), heroin, morphine, marijuana (Cannabis sativa), quinine (cinchona spp.)