History of botany voyages to distant lands instigating another phase of encyclopaedic plant identification, nomenclature, description and illustration, "flower painting" possibly at its best in this period of history. Plant trophies from distant lands decorated the gardens of Europe's powerful and wealthy in a period of enthusiasm for natural history, especially botany (a preoccupation sometimes referred to as "botanophilia") that is never likely to recur. Often such exotic new plant imports (primarily from Turkey), when they first appeared in print in English, lacked common names in the language. During the 18th century botany was one of the few sciences considered appropriate for genteel
Offset (botany) Offset (botany) In botany and horticulture, an offset is a small, virtually complete daughter plant that has been naturally and asexually produced on the mother plant. They are clones, meaning that they are genetically identical to the mother plant. They divide mitotically. In the plant nursery business and gardens, they are detached and grown on in order to produce new plants. This is a cheap and simple process for those plants that readily produce offsets as it does not usually require specialist materials and equipment. Offsets form when meristem regions of plants, such as axillary buds or homologous structures differentiate