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Botany Botany, the study of plants, occupies a peculiar position in thehistory of human knowledge. For many thousands of years it was the one field of awareness about which humans hadanything more than the vaguest of insights. It is impossible to know todayjust what our Stone Age ancestors knew about plants, but from what we canobserve of preindustrial societies that still exist a detailed learning of plants and their properties must be extremely ancient. This is logical. Plants are the basis of the foodpyramid for all living things even for other plants. They have always beenenormously important to the welfare of people not only for food, but also forclothing, weapons, tools, dyes, medicines, shelter, and a great many otherpurposes. Tribes living today in the jungles of the Amazonrecognize literally hundreds of plants and know many properties of each.To them, botany, as such, has no name and is probably not evenrecognized as a special branch of knowledgeat all. Unfortunately, the more industrialized we become thefarther away we move from direct contact with plants, and the lessdistinct our knowledge of botany grows. Yet everyone comes unconsciously on an amazing amount of botanical knowledge, and few people will fail to recognize a rose, anapple, or an orchid. When our Neolithic ancestors, living in the Middle East about 10, 000 years ago, discovered that certain grassescould be harvested and their seeds planted for richer yields the next season the first great step in a new association of plantsand humans was taken. Grains were discovered and from them flowedthe marvel of agriculture: cultivated crops. From then on, humans wouldincreasingly take their living | 
