Botany, also called plant science, plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek word βοτάνη meaning "pasture", "herbs" "grass", or "fodder"; βοτάνη is in turn derived from βόσκειν, "to feed" or "to graze". Traditionally, botany has also included the study of fungi and algae by mycologists and phycologists respectively, with the study of these three groups of organisms remaining within the sphere of interest of the International Botanical Congress. Nowadays, botanists study approximately 410,000 species of land plants of which some 391,000 species are vascular plants, and approximately 20,000 are bryophytes.
The Marchantiophyta are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information.
Hornworts are a group of non-vascular Embryophytes constituting the division Anthocerotophyta. The common name refers to the elongated horn-like structure, which is the sporophyte. As in mosses and liverworts, hornworts have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information; the flattened, green plant body of a hornwort is the gametophyte stage of the plant.
The Jerusalem artichoke, also called sunroot, sunchoke, wild sunflower, topinambur, or earth apple, is a species of sunflower native to central North America. It is cultivated widely across the temperate zone for its tuber, which is used as a root vegetable.
Johann Jacob Dillen Dillenius was a German botanist. He is known for his Hortus Elthamensis on the rare plants around Eltham, London, and for his Historia muscorum, a natural history of lower plants including mosses, liverworts, hornworts, lycopods, algae, lichens and fungi.
Basellaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Caryophyllales, in the clade core eudicots, according to the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. The family comprises 19 known species of herbaceous plants in four genera:
Lunularia cruciata, the crescent-cup liverwort, is a liverwort of the order Marchantiales, and the only species in the genus Lunularia and family Lunulariaceae. The name, from Latin luna, moon, refers to the moon-shaped gemma cups.
Sphaerocarpales is an order of plants within the liverworts. Approximately twenty species are in this order which is sub-divided into four families: Monocarpaceae, Sphaerocarpaceae and Riellaceae, as well as the extinct family Naiaditaceae. The inclusion of the Naiaditaceae is uncertain, and the family has sometimes been assigned to the Calobryales.
Marsupella profunda, the western rustwort, is a liverwort native to Europe and known only from Portugal and Great Britain (Cornwall) and has been sighted in the Canary Islands. It is a small reddish liverwort and can be confused with Marsupella sprucei which has a more widespread distribution.
Sphaerocarpaceae is a family of liverworts known as bottle liverworts. Approximately ten species are included in this family, most of them in the genus Sphaerocarpos, but one additional species in the genus Geothallus.
Sclerophrys taiensis is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae. It is known from the Taï National Park in southwestern Ivory Coast and from the Gola Forest in southeastern Sierra Leone; it is likely that its range extends into the adjacent Liberia. Common name Tai toad has been proposed for it.
Ptilidium californicum, the Pacific fuzzwort, is a rare liverwort of the western United States.
Herbertus borealis is a species of liverwort in the family Herbertaceae known as northern prongwort. It was described in 1970 by Alan Crundwell. It is endemic to Scotland, where it is found only in the Beinn Eighe nature reserve, and lives in dwarf shrub heath alongside other large liverworts such as Anastrophyllum donnianum, Bazzania tricrenata and Pleurozia purpurea. A closely related species, described in 2012 as Herbertus norenus and known as "Viking prongwort", is known from Shetland and Norway and was formerly confused with H. borealis.
Phycolepidozia exigua was thought to be the only species of liverwort in the genus Phycolepidozia and family Phycolepidoziaceae. Until another species was found. Phycolepidozia exigua is endemic to Dominica, where it is critically endangered. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.
Sphaerocarpos drewiae is a species of liverwort in the family Sphaerocarpaceae. It is endemic to California, where it is known from San Diego and Riverside Counties. Its common name is bottle liverwort.
Stephensoniella brevipedunculata is a species of liverwort in the family Exormothecaceae. It is the only species in the genus Stephensoniella. It is confined to the Western Himalaya in Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal. It is threatened by habitat loss.
Haplomitriopsida is a newly recognized class of liverworts comprising fifteen species in three genera. Recent cladistic analyses of nuclear, mitochondrial, and plastid gene sequences place this monophyletic group as the basal sister group to all other liverworts. The group thus provides a unique insight into the early evolution of liverworts in particular and of land plants in general.
Naso tuberosus, the humpnose unicornfish, is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Acanthuridae, the surgeonfishes, unicornfishes and tangs. This species occurs in the Indian Ocean but it may be more widespread.
The West Cornwall Bryophytes Site of Special Scientific Interest is a group of seven locations of former mining activity, that form a single SSSI and Important Plant Area in western Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The site is noted for its biological characteristics and derives its name from the rare bryophyte species found there.
Dame Ella Orr Campbell was a New Zealand botanist. An expert on bryophytes, she published 130 scientific papers on liverworts, hornworts, orchids, and wetlands. She became the first woman faculty member of the Massey Agricultural College in 1945, and in 2003 the herbarium at Massey was renamed the Dame Ella Campbell Herbarium in her honour. Following her retirement from teaching in 1976, she continued to research and publish for another two decades, finally retiring in 2000 at the age of 90.
