Botany in a Day 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 (Brassicaceae) have four petals with six stamens (4 tall, 2 short), and most or all of the 3,200 species are considered edible. The book is used as a text at universities, high schools, and herbal schools across North America. It is also recommended as a resource for the
History of botany History of botany The history of botany examines the human effort to understand life on Earth by tracing the historical development of the discipline of botany—that part of natural science dealing with organisms traditionally treated as plants. Rudimentary botanical science began with empirically-based plant lore passed from generation to generation in the oral traditions of paleolithic hunter-gatherers. The first written records of plants were made in the Neolithic Revolution about 10,000 years ago as writing was developed in the settled agricultural communities where plants and animals were first domesticated. The first writings that show human curiosity about plants themselves, rather