Botany with Taxonomy - Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, people, concepts, and classifications from the Botany with Taxonomy notes.

Botany

Scientific study of plants and plant-like organisms; includes origin, diversity, structure, internal processes, and interactions with other organisms and the environment.

Theophrastus

Ancient Greek botanist who founded morphology, classification, and natural history of plants; author of De causis plantarum and De historia plantarum.

De causis plantarum

Theophrastus' work On the Causes of Plants; early text on plant physiology and classification.

Pedanius Dioscorides

1st century CE Greek botanist; authored Herbal describing ~600 plants, categorized as Aromatic, Culinary, and Medicinal.

Pliny the Elder

Roman encyclopedist who compiled extensive plant volumes; first to mention the term 'stamen' in plants.

Binomial nomenclature

Two-term naming system for species: genus name followed by species name (e.g., Rosa canina).

Carolus Linnaeus

18th-century taxonomist who developed binomial nomenclature and described thousands of plant species; author of Species Plantarum.

Leon Ma. Guerrero

Filipino nationalist scientist; regarded as the 1st Filipino industrial scientist and forensic chemist.

Aristotle

Ancient Greek philosopher who studied the nature of plants and laid early groundwork in biology.

Crateuas

Rhizotomist known for early illustrated herbals and the oldest pharmacology treatises.

Charles Darwin

Naturalist who proposed natural selection and contributed to the understanding of plant phylogeny.

Johannes van Helmont

17th-century scientist who conducted early experiments on water uptake by trees (1640).

Robert Hooke

1665 scientist who invented the microscope, advancing plant anatomy and cell study.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek

17th-century scientist who observed a live cell under the microscope (1674).

John Ray

1686 author of Historia Plantarum; important early step toward modern taxonomy.

Rudolf Camerarius

1694 De Sexu Plantarum Epistola; established plant sexuality; pollen is required for seed formation.

Stephen Hales

1727 established plant physiology as a science; developed methods to measure plant area, mass, volume, temperature, etc.

Joseph Priestley

18th-century chemist who laid groundwork for chemical analysis of plant metabolism.

Chlorophyll (1818)

Discovery of chlorophyll, the pigment essential for photosynthesis.

Potato blight (1840)

Fungal disease that caused Irish potato famine; spurred advances in plant pathology.

Mayer (1847)

Elucidated the process of photosynthesis.

1862 photosynthesis discovery

Observation that starch formation in green cells occurs only in the presence of light, linking light to photosynthesis.

Chlorophyll a and b (1903)

Discovery of two main types of chlorophyll pigments: a and b.

Alexander Oparin

1936 proposed a mechanism for synthesis of organic matter from inorganic molecules (origin of life concepts).

Ecology (1940s)

Ecology emerged as a separate discipline; technology advanced understanding of plant–environment interactions and genetics.

Medieval-Renaissance herbals

Botanical books with plant descriptions and woodcut illustrations; widespread after printing advances.

Six-Kingdom classification

Taxonomic system: Plantae, Animalia, Fungi, Protista, Eubacteria, Archaebacteria.

Taxonomy

Science of classification, identification, nomenclature, and description of organisms.

Tropisms

Plant growth responses to stimuli: phototropism (light), geotropism (gravity), hydrotropism (water), thigmotropism (touch).

Eukaryotic vs. Prokaryotic

Eukaryotes have a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles; prokaryotes lack a nucleus and organelles.