botany

The knowledge learnt in botany courses can help individuals solve a variety of major issues that exist across our planet. These include helping to purify polluted soil and air, overcome food shortages, and reduce global warming. This course is ideal for anyone working with plants, from botanists, agriculturists, horticulturists and farmers to nursery workers, landscapers and even those in the ecotourism industry. 

In our Certificate of Botany, you will study the basics of plant science, including plant anatomy, physiology and morphology. In this fascinating botany course, you will also learn about the taxonomic classification of plants, the various systems in plants, the effects of growth manipulation, and how to harvest, store, transport and improve the shelf life of edible plants. Get that green thumb growing!  

Learning Outcomes 

Outcomes achieved by undertaking botany courses include:  

• Learning about the taxonomic classification of plants 
• Exploring plant taxonomy 
• Studying botanical and horticultural nomenclature 
• Gaining insights into the binomial system 
• Examining botanical classification 
• Studying plant cells and tissues 
• Discovering cell components 
• Gaining insights into plant growth 
• Examining the types of plant cells 
• Understanding primary and secondary plant tissues 
• Learning about the specific vegetative parts of a plant  
• Exploring stems, buds, roots and leaf structure and arrangement 
• Examining morphological changes due to maturation 
• Understanding common botanical terms 
• Learning about flowers and fruit 
• Exploring flower structure in terms of inflorescence 
• Studying fruits in terms of simple, aggregate and multiple 
• Discovering pollination and fertilisation 
• Understanding how to overcome incompatibility 
• Exploring seeds and the developing embryo  
• Gaining an understanding of seed structure 
• Studying seed germination 
• Uncovering germination requirements 
• Gaining insights into stimulation, inhibition and the propagation of plants 
• Examining photosynthesis and growing plants  
• Understanding chloroplasts in photosynthesis 
• Learning about photosynthesis in controlled growing conditions 
• Exploring artificial light and photosynthetic apparatus 
• Studying light transformation into energy 
• Understanding the stages of respiration 

… and more!  

 

Famous Botanists Throughout History  

The scientific study of plants helps us understand the effect of plants on animals and humans. And a number of botanists through history have had an enormous impact on the way botany is studied today. Here are some that will provide inspiration for anyone interested in studying botany courses. 

Paracelsus  

Born in 1493, Paracelsus was a follower of the spiritual influences of the cosmos on man and nature. A believer in the classic Greek elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, he believed that human health and in turn illnesses relied heavily on man’s harmony with nature. 

 

Carl Linnaeus 

Linnaeus is the father of modern biological classification systems, and after graduating from university, conducted numerous field studies where thousands of species of fauna and flora were identified, labelled and catalogued. He had a long and distinguished career until his death in 1778. 

 

Albrecht von Haller 

Swiss-born von Haller initially pursued a career as a physician and is credited with heralding modern-day physiology and neurology. However, his interest in botany also saw him collecting a large range of flower species, leading to his reputation as one of the most renowned botanists of the eighteenth century.  

 

Sir Joseph Banks 

An English botanist, Banks embarked on a voyage to the Pacific Ocean on the HMS Endeavour with James Cook in 1763. After returning with a major collection of specimens, he became an adviser to King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. The garden at the time was incomparable to any other botanical garden in the world. 

 

Robert Brown  

Born in 1773, Brown developed a passion for mosses and accompanied Sir Joseph Banks on an expedition to Australia, where he gathered most of the species he explored in his lifetime. His contribution to the field is considered monumental, and several species of plants have been named in his honour. 

 

Hugo von Mohl  

Von Mohl was a major figure in the emerging fields of plant physiology and anatomy in the mid-19th century. His research paved the way for the development of the plant cell theory. A professor of botany in Germany, he was the first to propose that new cells are formed by cell division, and also provided the first clear explanation of the role of osmosis. 

 

Ferdinand Von Mueller  

A German-Australian botanist who founded the National Herbarium of Victoria, Von Mueller was one of Australia’s most prominent 19th-century scientists. He was appointed government botanist for Victoria by Governor Charles La Trobe, travelled extensively on scientific expeditions, and is credited to have discovered nearly 800 new species in Australia. 

 

Jagadish Chandra Bose  

Born in 1858, Chandra Bose was the first person to prove that plants have the ability to feel pain and affection. His highly sensitive instruments were able to detect the minute responses by living organisations to external stimuli. He was recognised as the first modern scientist of India by the Royal Institution in London.  

 

George Washington Carver  

Often referred to as the Father of chemurgy (which is the industrial and chemical use of organic raw materials), Carver encouraged the growth of alternative crops. Passionate about helping poor farmers increase their productivity, his work played a significant role in the revival of the agricultural economy in the late 19th century.  

 

Agnes Arber  

Born in the UK in 1879, Arber learnt the art of illustration from her father, which she applied to plant anatomy and morphology. As one of the eminent botanists of her time, her significant research work, including her work on floral structure, has formed the basis of a range of developments in plant science. 

 

Marie Stopes   

Born in 1880, Stopes was a British palaeobotanist who studied the influence of plants in relation to the evolution of life. She was the first female science academician at the University of Manchester, and the youngest person in Britain to attain a doctorate degree from the University College London. 

 

Birbal Sahni  

Sahni earned a doctorate from the University of London in 1919 and was a pioneer in palaeobotanical research (the study of fossil plants). He became the Head of the Botany Department of the Lucknow University in India, and founded what is now the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany in 1946. 

 

Janaki Ammal Edavaleth Kakkat 

Born in India in 1897, Ammal was a botanist best remembered for her work with sugarcane. An expert in cytogenetics (the genetic content of genes in cells), her work led to new findings on the evolution of species. Her research played a vital role in choosing plant varieties for cross-breeding in order to produce the sweetest sugarcane.  

 

Lynn Margulis  

Margulis was born in the US in 1938 and as a biologist, completely altered the concept of how life came about on Earth. She eventually became the Distinguished Professor of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts. As a staunch evolutionist, her theoretical paper on mitosing cells is now considered as the landmark argument in endosymbiotic theory.  

 

Australian Fossil Reveals New Plant Species 

Searching for new plant species is an undertaking that scientists around the world aspire to. And a recent discovery by a student at Flinders University has provided fresh inspiration for botanists, and for all those who are interested in undertaking botany courses.  

The fern-like species discovered is believed to be among the earliest plants on earth and thought to have existed in Australia over 359 million years ago. It was unearthed after PhD student Antoine Champreux undertook a fresh examination of a fossil that was discovered in the 1960s by amateur geologist, John Irving. Found on the banks of the Manilla River in Barraba NSW, the fossil was unearthed by a major flooding event in 1964, however, it remained in storage for more than 50 years. 

The fossil dates back to a time when Australia was part of the super-continent Gondwana, and although diverse fish species existed in the oceans at this time, continents had no dinosaurs or flowering plants. Well-preserved fossils from this era are extremely rare, and its condition allowed Champreux to observe the walls of million-year-old cells. The plant was named genus Keraphyton (for the Greek name for the horn plant), and the species Keraphyton mawsoniae, in honour of Professor Ruth Mawson, a distinguished Australian palaeontologist who died in 2019. 

 

Use your understanding of how plants grow to solve some of the complex biological issues of our rapidly changing world with a botany course, such as the Certificate of Botany!