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
Plant life-form plant functional type, which has recently replaced "life-form" in a narrow sense. Following, some relevant schemes. Based on plant habit: Humboldt described 19 (originally 16) "Hauptformen", named mostly after some characteristic genus or family: Based upon the duration of life and the height of the ligneous stem: Based on the place of the plant's growth-point (bud) during seasons with adverse conditions (cold seasons, dry seasons): Vegetation-forms: Main life-forms ("Grundformen") system: Growth-form system: Main groups of plant life forms: Following, other morphological, ecological, physiological or economic categorizations of plants. According to the general appearance (habit): According to leaf hardness, size and