User:Jackward1/Botany

During the 18th century, systems of plant identification were developed comparable to dichotomous keys, where unidentified plants are placed into taxonomic groups (e.g. family, genus and species) by making a series of choices between pairs of characters. The choice and sequence of the characters may be artificial in keys designed purely for identification (diagnostic keys) or more closely related to the natural or phyletic order of the taxa in synoptic keys. By the 18th century, new plants for study were arriving in Europe in increasing numbers from newly discovered countries and the European colonies worldwide. In 1753, Carl von Linné (Carl Linnaeus) published his Species Plantarum, a hierarchical classification of plant species that remains the reference point for modern botanical nomenclature. This established a standardised binomial or two-part naming scheme where the first name represented the genus and the second identified the species within the genus. For the purposes of identification, Linnaeus's Systema Sexuale classified plants into 24 groups according to the number of their male sexual organs. The 24th group, Cryptogamia, included all plants with concealed reproductive parts, mosses, liverworts, ferns, algae and fungi.

This clinical categorization of plants was soon followed by the creation of the categories of race and sexuality; the classification of plants necessitated classification of all other living things, including humans '''. As a result, taxonomy and botany played an influential role in the development of scientific racism . One example of this progression is in the works of Carl Linnaeus, the previously mentioned 18th century botanist . As Linnaeus moved on from classifying plants to classifying all organisms, he published Systema Naturae, a major classificatory piece that he would continue to edit and grow over time . In his 10th edition he expands from four "varieties" of man - Europeans Albus, Americanus Rubescens, Asiaticus Fuscus, and Africanus Niger, based on the four known continents - he also attributes certain skin color, medical temperament, body posture, physical traits, behavior, manner of clothing, and form of government to each variety of people . In these descriptions he labels Asian people as stern, taught, and greedy; black people as sly, sluggish, and neglectful; white people as light, wise, and inventors . Linnaeus is only one of many botanists who influenced scientific racism through the categorization of organisms .'''

Increasing knowledge of plant anatomy, morphology and life cycles led to the realisation that there were more natural affinities between plants than the artificial sexual system of Linnaeus. Adanson (1763), de Jussieu (1789), and Candolle (1819) all proposed various alternative natural systems of classification that grouped plants using a wider range of shared characters and were widely followed. The Candollean system reflected his ideas of the progression of morphological complexity and the later Bentham & Hooker system, which was influential until the mid-19th century, was influenced by Candolle's approach. Darwin's publication of the Origin of Species in 1859 and his concept of common descent required modifications to the Candollean system to reflect evolutionary relationships as distinct from mere morphological similarity.

Botany was greatly stimulated by the appearance of the first "modern" textbook, Matthias Schleiden's Grundzüge der Wissenschaftlichen Botanik, published in English in 1849 as Principles of Scientific Botany. Schleiden was a microscopist and an early plant anatomist who co-founded the cell theory with Theodor Schwann and Rudolf Virchow and was among the first to grasp the significance of the cell nucleus that had been described by Robert Brown in 1831. In 1855, Adolf Fick formulated Fick's laws that enabled the calculation of the rates of molecular diffusion in biological systems.

'''The system in which early modern botany was practiced was very extensive. Modern botany emerged following the surge in exploration of other continents by European colonizers . Plant collectors would travel to different countries in search of new specimens for botanists to classify . The plants would then be hybridized and then sent to plantations where slaves and indentured servants worked to cultivate and sustain their growth . The plants that weren't sent to be grown in monoculture were studied by botanists in botanic gardens which were often times maintained by enslaved workers . One place that exemplifies both slave labor on plantations and in botanic gardens is St. Vincent Island . Plantation slavery was vital for the economic success of the sugar colonies and because of this, slavery influenced the aims of the St. Vincent botanical gardens . One project produced by the gardens was the breadfruit project which brought breadfruit trees from Tahiti as low-maintenance sustenance for enslaved workers . Though it was characterized as a humanitarian improvement project by St. Vincent botanical gardens, it served as a way to maintain slavery, maintain control over enslaved populations, and distance themselves from the responsibility of providing food to the enslaved . Though modern botany served and still serves to be useful for many, it has been connected to imbalanced power structures in the past .'''