i. PHARMACEUTICAL BOTANY 
diseases are described. Dioscorides, a Greek physician, about 
77 A.D. wrote a Materia Medica which included a large number 
of descriptions of medicinal plants and all the medicinal sub- 
stances then known together with their properties. The early 
Romans also contributed to the development of Pharmaceutical 
Botany. Outstanding among these were Pliny the Elder 
(23-79 A.D.), who in his Historia Naturalis crudely described 
about 1000 plants, many of which possessed medicinal properties, 
and Galen (131-200 A.D.), a Graco-Roman, who wrote a 
Materia Medica. 
Attention was next concentrated upon the classification 
of plants, and gradually investigations followed on their structure, 
functions, habits, relationships, diseases, etc., until to-day the scope 
of botanical study embraces every kind of inquiry about plants. 
The field of botany has thus developed many specialties or 
departments of inquiry. 
DEPARTMENTS OF BOTANICAL INQUIRY 
1. PLant Morpuovocy treats of the parts, or structure of 
plants. It is divided into: 
(a2) MACROMORPHOLOGY or Gross ANATOMY which deals 
with the external characters of plants and of their parts or organs; 
(6) MicroMorPHOLOGY or HisToLocy which considers the minute 
or microscopical structure of plants and plant tissues and (c) 
Cyto ocy which treats of plant cells and their contents. 
——2, Pant Empryovoey treats of the stages of growth, differen- 
tiation and development of the individual plant body. 
3. PLANT PuystoLocy deals with the study of the life processes 
or functions of plants. It explains how the various parts ees 
plants perform their work of nutrition, growth, reproduction, — 
and the preparation of food for the support of animal life from 
substances not adapted to that use. 
4. Taxonomy or PLANTs or SysteMATIC BoTANy considers 
the classification or arrangement of plants in groups in accord- 
ance with their relationships toone another. It also is concerned 
with the identification, the accurate description and the naming 
of plants. All of the plants found growing in a certain <e 
constitute the Flora of that region. 
