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 northern Italy, the first being at Pisa (1544), founded by Luca Ghini (1490–1556). Although part of a medical faculty, the first chair of ', essentially a chair in botany, was established in Padua in 1533. Then in 1534, Ghini became Reader in ' at Bologna University, where Aldrovandi established a similar garden in 1568 (see below). Collections of pressed and dried specimens were called a "" (garden of dry plants) and the first accumulation of plants in this way (including the use of a plant press) is attributed to Ghini. Buildings called herbaria housed these specimens mounted on card with