Talk:History of botany

Status
This page is still under development. Please do not tag until it is flagged as "complete" on this page.  Granitethighs  09:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)


 * OK - there is still some fine-tuning but I have removed the "under construction" tag and will give this article a rest from me for a while. It seems rather long but is well under the length of many featured articles.  Granitethighs  01:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments
I am delighted to find this article, but still would like to suggest some changes.
 * The first sentence should clearly say what the subject is in such a way that the notability can be understood. The start in this article seems to assume the the context is given. See for example how GA history of paleontology begins. ✅
 * Another good way to help setting the context would be to link to botany in the first paragraph. ✅
 * A third way to help setting the context would be to use something more explanatory as the first illustration, for example the photo shown here to the right. ✅
 * The history of the term biology is not needed in this article. ✅
 * Most notable of the ... A verb seems to be missing in the second half of the sentence. For facts, this sentence is rather vacuous. In the end, the reader is invited to add any subtopic that is missing in the lists of most notable. Maybe a less pretentious beginning would correspond better to the actual content of this sentence.
 * I take your point and have tried to improve the expression here - but it may need some more work. What do you think?


 * The rather subtle distinction between morphology and anatomy is taken for granted in the Introduction. ✅
 * special plant groups Maybe it should be made clearer that although algae is often called a group, it is not a taxon.
 * I take your point and have tried to improve the expression here - but it may need some more work. What do you think?


 * is now treated elsewhere Does this mean that mycologoy is not included in botany? Botany says it is included. The demarcation of "botany" is very difficult. As the perception of biological relationships has changed drastically, taxonomy-based subject definitions have been preserved to a large extent. Therefore the Introduction needs a rather elaborate discussion about what is meant by botany. Maybe this quote from "Biology of Plants", 1999, p 11, 12, can be of help for a first step: Included in this book are all organisms that have traditionally been studied by botanists: plants as well as procaryotes, viruses, fungi, and autotrophic protists (algae). Only the animals have traditionally been the province of zoologists. Although we do not regard algae, fungi, prokaryotes, or viruses as plants, and shall not refer to them as plants in this book, they are included here because of tradition and because they are normally considered as part of the botanical portion of the curriculum, ... but they still fall loosely under the umbrella of botany. Illustrating how the concept of botany itself has changed over time is in my view an important task of this article.
 * Mycology, once part of botany, has in recent times taken its own course - being a separate kingdom is a substantial division. Though mycologists often work with botanists I think they would like to tell their own history of the topic - like people studying ferns and mosses. I think this is the best approach for Wikipedia and have adjusted the wording accordingly. I also think the article on botany is actually misleading on this and needs updating. Is it clearer now?


 * This marked the domestication What does marked mean here? This seems to refer to formation of settled communities. Does this mean that we can now observe that people settled, and from this draw the conclusion that domestication of plants and animals and invention of writing occurred? I think that the direction of causation between domestication and settlement is contentious. First writing was much later than first domestication + settlement. But I think the only elements we need here are domestication of plants and invention of writing. Contemporary hnter/gatherers are normally very knowledgable about their flora. We can be fairly confident that so were many paleolithic people. Then, with domestication, there is a change in the knowledge about the domesticated plants. Then, with writing there is a gnage in the possibility of preserving knowledge about plants.
 * I take your point and have tried to improve the expression here - but it may need some more work. What do you think?


 * I haven't yet read through the whole article. But my impression is that apart from the introductions, it is concerned only with the study of Plantae. I would have wished for an article about the history of Botany to show also how the demarcation of Botany itself has changed with developing insights into the subject matter. I think for example that Carl von Linné once placed the mushrooms in Vermes, Zoology. But a general principle in Wikipedia is to describe phenomena, rather than concepts, and use the words with the meaning they have today. So, is this article too narrow? I will not persist on this. But I would like to say that I find it very valuable, consistent and well written.
 * I'm sure this can be done but it needs thought ... and, unfortunately, space. In spite of the loss of fungi I think the general idea of plants has remained pretty constant over time. I have tried to give some feel for the conceptual transition you talk about, especially for more recent times. I wonder what Carl would have made of molecular systematics for instance? Probably not botany. Are you prepared to spell out your concerns in a little more detail?  Granitethighs   12:27, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

--Ettrig (talk) 06:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Many thanks Ettrig - very constructive comments. If it is OK with you I shall tackle each point you have made (will reply to each point as it is above) and then we can move on from there.  Granitethighs  12:44, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The first half of Developmental Morphology is about Evolution. Evolution is not a sub-topic of Developmental Morphology. --Ettrig (talk) 07:26, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

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 * Replaced dead link with live one --Michael Goodyear (talk) 17:25, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

School of Athens
Is there a reason that a detail is used of School of Athens instead of the whole painting? Seems kind of pointless, especially when the image is already so large. (Read through some of the article though - its very well done) Aza24 (talk) 05:40, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Botany 1st year
History btado 27.97.153.184 (talk) 16:57, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Ancient India
cation is found in the Rigveda, a collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns from about 3700–3100 BP. Plants are divided into vṛska (trees), osadhi (herbs useful to humans) and virudha (creepers), with further subdivisions. The sacred Hindu text Atharvaveda divides plants into eight classes: visakha (spreading branches), manjari (leaves with long clusters), sthambini (bushy plants), prastanavati (which expands); ekasṛnga (those with monopodial growth), pratanavati (creeping plants), amsumati (with many stalks), and kandini (plants with knotty joints). The Taittiriya Samhita classifies the plant kingdom into vṛksa, vana and druma (trees), visakha (shrubs with spreading branches), sasa (herbs), amsumali (spreading plant), vratati (climber), stambini (bushy plant), pratanavati (creeper), and alasala (spreading on the ground). Other examples of early Indian taxonomy include Manusmriti, the Law book of Hindus, which classifies plants into eight major categories. Elaborate taxonomies also occur in the Charaka Samhitā, Sushruta Samhita and Vaisesika The reference doesn't even mentions about it Reference is given below. https://archive.org/details/historyofbotanic0000mort/mode/1up Harikrishnayappa34 (talk) 23:47, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
 * the question is whether this early writing constitutes "botany", if a distinction is made between 'scientific' and purely descriptive accounts of plants. Merely putting plants into descriptive categories doesn't, in my view, constitute "botany". Were distinctions made that relate to the function of parts? Theophrastus, for example, made distinctions that are still relevant today, e.g. between leaves and leaflets composing leaves, or between superior and inferior ovaries. Are there such distinctions in the early Indian writings? Peter coxhead (talk) 06:36, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * This user is/was evading a ban, and will not be responding to your reply. Mako001 (C) (T)  🇺🇦 10:56, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Lacks verifiability(Ancient India)
Most of the text contained under the section Ancient India lacks verifiability. The texts that failed verification when checked with the already provided source is marked with failed verification span as shown below

As it is evident, only the first and last line seems to be verifiable with the page 12 of the cited article. Checked the rest of the book also, the result is same.

Going through this article's edit history, several users seems to have figured this issue and improved the article with verifiable information contained with the already cited source material, also by removing these lines, but it ends in reverting back citing block evasion (I haven't gone through the details of each reversions). For whatever reason, it was a huge mistake not to cross check these lines if it matches the cited source before doing the reversion, and because of that mistake, these unverified lines have remained in this wikipedia article for so long that it may have influenced many common readers of Wikipedia. Verifiability is the core principle of Wikipedia, instances like this undermines this platforms credibility. അദ്വൈതൻ (talk) 22:06, 20 July 2024 (UTC)