Question

Have a short discussion on the three periods of botany history.

Answer 1

Answer:

The history of botany examines the human effort to understand life on Earth by tracing the historical development of the discipline of botany—that part of natural science dealing with organisms traditionally treated as plants.

Some traditional tools of botanical science

Rudimentary botanical science began with empirically-based plant lore passed from generation to generation in the oral traditions of paleolithic hunter-gatherers. The first written records of plants were made in the Neolithic Revolution about 10,000 years ago as writing was developed in the settled agricultural communities where plants and animals were first domesticated. The first writings that show human curiosity about plants themselves, rather than the uses that could be made of them, appear in ancient Greece and ancient India. In Ancient Greece, the teachings of Aristotle's student Theophrastus at the Lyceum in ancient Athens in about 350 BC are considered the starting point for Western botany. In ancient India, the Vŗkşăyurvĕda, attributed to Parăśara, is also considered one of the earliest texts to describe various branches of botany.[1]

In Europe, botanical science was soon overshadowed by a medieval preoccupation with the medicinal properties of plants that lasted more than 1000 years. During this time, the medicinal works of classical antiquity were reproduced in manuscripts and books called herbals. In China and the Arab world, the Greco-Roman work on medicinal plants was preserved and extended.