History of botany scope of the subject as technology has opened up new techniques and areas of study. Modern molecular systematics, for example, entails the principles and techniques of taxonomy, molecular biology, computer science and more. Within botany there are a number of sub-disciplines that focus on particular plant groups, each with their own range of related studies (anatomy, morphology etc.). Included here are: phycology (algae), pteridology (ferns), bryology (mosses and liverworts) and palaeobotany (fossil plants) and their histories are treated elsewhere (see side bar). To this list can be added mycology, the study of fungi, which were once treated as plants, but
The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication spite of the fact that a considerable number of these assumptions are untenable, a part of the theory still remains which must be accepted as fundamental and correct,--in principle at any rate,--not only now but for all time to come. ... presupposing the existence of material particles in the germ which possess the properties of the living being ... I must honestly confess to having mentally resisted this fundamental point of the Darwinian doctrine for a long time." The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication is a book by Charles Darwin