Botany in a Day Nature Merit Badge by the Boy Scouts of America. Although the text is primarily oriented towards North American plants, "Botany in a Day" has been used to identify plants in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America. As of 2010, there were more than 45,000 copies in print. Botany in a Day Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification is a book by Thomas J. Elpel published by HOPS Press, LLC. The book emphasizes family characteristics for plant identification. Related plants typically have similar floral features and often similar uses. For example, plants of the mustard family
History of botany 14th–17th centuries heralded a scientific revival during which botany gradually emerged from natural history as an independent science, distinct from medicine and agriculture. Herbals were replaced by floras: books that described the native plants of local regions. The invention of the microscope stimulated the study of plant anatomy, and the first carefully designed experiments in plant physiology were performed. With the expansion of trade and exploration beyond Europe, the many new plants being discovered were subjected to an increasingly rigorous process of naming, description, and classification. Progressively more sophisticated scientific technology has aided the development of contemporary botanical offshoots in