Botanist facts for kids
A botanist is a scientist who studies plants, including flowering plants, and plant-like things such as moss and seaweed. Botany is a scientific study of plants along with their growth, structure, evolution, and uses.
Botanists may specialize in certain areas of botany. Some important areas of study include:
- Plant taxonomy
- Plant ecology
- Chemical biology
- Photosynthesis, the process that turns carbon dioxide from the air into food using sunlight
- Apoptosis, what makes a cell "decide" to die. This study area has been important for cancer research.
Images for kids
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The fruit of Myristica fragrans, a species native to Indonesia, is the source of two valuable spices, the red aril (mace) enclosing the dark brown nutmeg.
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An engraving of the cells of cork, from Robert Hooke's Micrographia, 1665
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Echeveria glauca in a Connecticut greenhouse. Botany uses Latin names for identification, here, the specific name glauca means blue.
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Micropropagation of transgenic plants
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The food we eat comes directly or indirectly from plants such as rice.
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The nodules of Medicago italica contain the nitrogen fixing bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti. The plant provides the bacteria with nutrients and an anaerobic environment, and the bacteria fix nitrogen for the plant.
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Thale cress, Arabidopsis thaliana, the first plant to have its genome sequenced, remains the most important model organism.
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Transverse section of a fossil stem of the Devonian vascular plant Rhynia gwynne-vaughani
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Five of the key areas of study within plant physiology
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A nineteenth-century illustration showing the morphology of the roots, stems, leaves and flowers of the rice plant Oryza sativa
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A botanist preparing a plant specimen for mounting in the herbarium
See also
In Spanish: Botánica para niños
