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At that time both botany and the art of gardening stressed the utility of plants for man; the popular herbal, described the medical uses of plants. [37] During the Middle Ages, there was an expansion of book culture that spread through the medieval world.
The use of plants for medicinal purposes, and their descriptions, dates back two to three thousand years. [10] [11] The word herbal is derived from the mediaeval Latin liber herbalis ("book of herbs"): [2] it is sometimes used in contrast to the word florilegium, which is a treatise on flowers [12] with emphasis on their beauty and enjoyment rather than the herbal emphasis on their utility. [13]
Botany (Greek Βοτάνη (botanē) meaning "pasture", "herbs" "grass", or "fodder"; [2] Medieval Latin botanicus – herb, plant) [3] and zoology are, historically, the core disciplines of biology whose history is closely associated with the natural sciences chemistry, physics and geology. A distinction can be made between botanical science ...
Botany originated in prehistory as herbalism with the efforts of early humans to identify – and later cultivate – plants that were edible, poisonous, and possibly medicinal, making it one of the first endeavours of human investigation. Medieval physic gardens, often attached to monasteries, contained plants possibly having medicinal benefit.
Botany and the study of herbs was, in its infancy, primarily a study of the pharmacological uses of plants. During the Middle Ages, when humoral theory guided medicine, it was posited that foodstuffs, possessing their own humoral qualities, could alter the humoral temperaments of people.
[3] [4] Ethnobotany integrates knowledge from botany, anthropology, ecology, and chemistry to study plant-related customs across cultures. Researchers in this field document and analyze how different societies use local flora for various purposes, including medicine , food , religious use , intoxicants , building materials , fuels and clothing ...
He was described as "simplicist" (i.e., a person growing simples, medieval medicinal herbs) or "arborist" (a person growing trees, arbres in French). In 1601, he sowed the first Robinia introduced in Europe, either in his garden, which is now the place Dauphine , [ 2 ] or in the garden of the School of Medicine, which included the current ...
The 1597 Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes by herbalist John Gerard was said to be the catalogue raisonné of physic gardens, both public and private, which were instituted throughout Europe. [5] It listed 1,030 plants found in his physic garden at Holborn, and was the first such catalogue printed. [1]