The science of botany is the scientific study of plants. Plants are very important. Without them people and other animals would have no food. Plants also furnish many things besides food.
Botany also include a vast range of disciplines concerned with the
study of plants, fungi, and algae, including structure, metabolism, growth, development, reproduction, chemical properties, diseases,
and evolutionary relationships among taxonomic groups.
Because plants are so important, we need to know a great many things about them. We need to know how they are built and how they carry on the work of living. We need to know how different plants manage to live in different soils and different climates and with different plant and animal neighbors. We need to know which plants are closely related. We need to know how to make plants grow well and how to get new and better kinds. We need to know, too, how to protect plants from disease and insect enemies.
Paleobotanists study ancient plants in the fossil record.
