PART I 
INTRODUCTION 
CHAPTER I 
FUNDAMENTAL NOTIONS 
1. What is Botany? The names of most sciences merely 
tell what they are about. Thus the term zoology (from 
the Greek, zoon, animal, + logos, discourse) indicates 
the study of animals, geology the study of the earth, 
mineralogy the study of minerals. A similar name for the 
study of plants would be phytology, from the Greek phyton 
(<PVTOV), a plant, and this word is, indeed, sometimes used. 
But the generally accepted name, botany, tells more than 
what the science is about; it points back to why mankind 
ever came to study plants. The reason was because 
plants are so intimately and fundamentally related to our 
own lives that it becomes, not only interesting, but 
absolutely essential to know about them, and under- 
stand them. 
The word botany comes from a Greek word, bosko 
(j86a/cco), meaning, "I eat." Botany, then, was originally 
the science of things good to eat, and the term recognizes 
the fact that for all of our food we are either directly or 
