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 Private Life of Plants lead to the prey developing methods of self-defence — from plants growing spikes to insects learning to recognise mimicry. Yet humans can work around all these rules of nature, so Attenborough concludes with a plea to preserve plants, in the interest of self-preservation. In the 2002 documentary "Life on Air", Keith Scholey, the head of the BBC Natural History Unit, relates that he and his team had been wondering about an ecology series that included plants, and found that Attenborough had been thinking along the same lines: "So we went to his house and David, as always, listened to our