Botany is an old science, one branch of which, taxonomy, antedates recorded history. In fact, the early Chinese, Egyptian, and Assyrian cultures were based, to a degree, on cultivated plants (Porter, 1959). The early developers of systematic botany included Theophrastus (370 - 287 B.C. ), Pliny the Elder (23 - 79 A.D.), and Dioscorides (lst century, A.D.). Theophrastus, the "father of botany," classified plants according to the growth habit. Thus he had four groups: barbs, undershrubs, shrubs, and trees.

Gibbs, R. (Supervisor)