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Exploring Botany: A Quiz on Plant Science and History

This quiz tests your knowledge of botany, covering key figures, historical texts, and fundamental concepts in plant science.

#Botany #Plant Science #History of Botany #Plant Biology #Genetics #Herbal Medicine

1 Pollan, M., The Botany of Desire: a plant's-eye view of the world, London: Bloomsbury, ISBN 0-7475-6300-4 - Account of the ________ of plants and humans

2 The genetic laws of inheritance were discovered in this way by ________, who was studying the way pea shape is inherited.

3 At each of these levels a botanist might be concerned with the classification (________), structure (anatomy and morphology), or function (physiology) of plant life.

4 In 1665, using an early microscope, ________ discovered cells in cork, and a short time later in living plant tissue.

5 Botany, plant science(s), phytology, or plant biology is a branch of ________ and is the scientific study of plant life and development.

6 There was also the 11th century scientists and statesmen Su Song and ________, who compiled treatises on herbal medicine and included the use of mineralogy.

7 Charaka Samhitā and ________ and the Vaisesikas also present an elaborate taxonomy.

8 The ________ Jacob Theodor Klein and Leonhart Fuchs, the Swiss Conrad von Gesner, and the British author Nicholas Culpeper published herbals that gave information on the medicinal uses of plants.

9 Additionally, ________ discovered 'jumping genes' by studying maize.

10 There was the ________ (202 BC-220 AD) written work of the Huangdi Neijing and the famous pharmacologist Zhang Zhongjing of the 2nd century.

💡 Interesting Facts

  • Flora Danica, a comprehensive botanical collection containing pictures of all known wild plants native to Denmark, was initiated by Georg Christian Oeder.
  • plant physiology is the subdiscipline of botany concerned with the function, or physiology, of plants.
  • Lydia Becker, founder of the Women's Suffrage Journal, was also an amateur botanist and friend of Charles Darwin.
  • for helping endow a professorship of botany at the University of Oxford, James Sherard was granted a doctorate in medicine by the university in 1731.
  • several mountains, a chain of craters, a learned society and a botanical genus are named after Louis Ramond de Carbonnières.
  • the plant genus Regelia is named after the 19th-century Russian botanist Eduard August von Regel and is found only in Australia.
  • the Irish–Australian surveyor Robert D. Fitzgerald became so skilled in his hobby of botany that Charles Darwin corresponded with him and 4 plants were named in his honour.
  • Jonathan Stokes was an English physician and botanist, a member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, and an early adopter of the heart drug digitalis (pictured).
  • Jane Colden was the first female botanist to describe flora in the United States.
  • English botanist John Ralfs amassed a collection 3,137 microscopic slides, which he left in his will to the British Museum.
  • botanists Haaken H. Gran and Trygve Braarud began their academic careers as research assistants at Oslo's University Botanical Garden laboratory, founded by Nordal Wille in 1895.
  • botanist Tomitaro Makino, despite dropping out of grammar school, named over 2500 plants and is known as the "Father of Japanese Botany".
  • stems and sheaths of Korthalsia palm trees, named after Dutch botanist P. W. Korthals who first collected them from Indonesia, can be made into rope.
  • Richard Polwhele's polemic poem The Unsex'd Females deplored the female pastime of amateur botany due to the impropriety of learning about the reproduction of plants.
  • Eduard August von Regel, a 19th-century German botanist, named and described over 3,000 new plant species.
  • Cyril Tenison White, who authored a 42-part series on weeds, was awarded the Mueller Medal for his important contributions to Australian botanical science.
  • botanist Leonard John Brass was born and died in Australia, served in the Canadian Army, became an American citizen and did most of his fieldwork in New Guinea.
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