Interest In Botany Research Articles

Conservation Tree: A Game for Teaching Science, Botany, and Environmental Education

In recent decades, the teaching of Biology and Natural Sciences has been primarily focused on preparing students for college entrance exams (Silva, 2019), reducing education to the memorization of concepts, rules, and processes and limiting nature to repetitive events (Costa; Mota; Brito, 2021). To fully comprehend scientific knowledge, it’s necessary to consider everything that surrounds the organisms discussed in these courses (Monerat & Rocha, 2018). Botany education was, for an extended period, disconnected from the natural environment (Pereira-Ribeiro et al., 2018). Publications in the field predominantly emphasized foreign flora and landscapes over domestic ones, leading to a decline in interest in botany (Mello, 1996) and, consequently, neglecting the native landscape as part of students’ daily life. Alternative teaching tools are crucial for understanding the subjects taught in the classroom and for retaining the terminology and concepts presented in theoretical classes across various disciplines (Perini & Rossini, 2018). The participation of students in group games aims to stimulate children and adolescents to develop logical reasoning and promote greater social integration among students (Paiva; Fonseca; Colares, 2022). In this context, this university extension project’s primary objective is to develop and test methodological strategies as alternative tools for teaching Natural Sciences, Botany, and Environmental Education. The foundation of these strategies is botanical educational games rooted in regional flora, which were tested in 6th-grade classrooms at the State School Maria Almeida do Nascimento in Coari/AM. The methodology includes meetings with student extensionists to outline evaluation measures, the application of games, and the dissemination of the results. These results have been made available as an alternative methodological tool for the school’s teachers. As a result, it was observed that the game effectively facilitated the introduction and consolidation of botanical content, particularly in plant morphophysiology and environmental conservation, among community learners, who are 6th-grade students for whom the game is intended.

Special Report: Autism Spectrum Disorder and Inflexible Thinking—Affecting Patients Across the Lifespan

Special Report: Autism Spectrum Disorder and Inflexible Thinking—Affecting Patients Across the Lifespan

The Legacy of Welsh Botanist Jessie Gwendoline O’Callaghan (née Insole; 1882–1932)

This biographical paper examines the background of collections comprising illustrations of fungi and herbarium specimens attributed to Jessie O’Callaghan, held by the Amgueddfa Cymru—Museum Wales. O’Callaghan was a privileged, wealthy woman born in the Welsh parish of Llandaff, which, in 1922, was incorporated into Cardiff, now Wales’ capital city. Upon her marriage in 1906 she moved to Ireland, but eventually settled in the English county of Surrey. Throughout her life she had an enduring interest in botany, seeking, collecting, painting, and cultivating rare plants. She shared this passion with Eleanor Vachell, the well-regarded Welsh amateur botanist, whom she had known since childhood. Entries in Eleanor’s diaries, and their letters, together with a surviving photograph album, provide fascinating insights into Jessie’s life. The paper also speculates on the fate of O’Callaghan’s collection of 595 watercolour paintings of wild flowers, loaned to the Museum by her daughter in 1932, but later returned to her.

The Doctor's Garden: Medicine, Science, and Horticulture in Britain

The Doctor's Garden: Medicine, Science, and Horticulture in Britain

T. H. Huxley’s turbulent apprenticeship years: John Charles Cooke and the John Salt scandal

Thomas Henry Huxley’s early medical apprenticeships (between 1838 and 1842) were largely a family affair. They were overseen by one brother-in-law, John Charles Cooke, in Coventry, and another brother-in-law, John Godwin Salt, in London. With both Cooke and Salt teaching at Sydenham College, a private medical school in London, young Huxley too attended this cheap anatomy school in its final year (1841–1842). Huxley developed an interest in botany under Cooke, who was the Professor of Toxicology at the Medico-Botanical Society in 1842. But the brothers-in-law led chaotic lives. Cooke over-indulged in beer and opium, grew corpulent, and eventually failed to make a living teaching. Salt was involved in a previously unexplained scandal, which equally had an impact on the young Huxley. Shortly after Huxley ceased living with John and Eliza Salt (Huxley’s favourite sister), John Salt was jailed for a second time as an insolvent debtor. Huxley was privy to events, sympathetic to the family, and facilitated their flight from the country in 1846.

Exploring arrow poisons from Windvogel’s Country, Eastern Cape, South Africa: a discussion between Piet Windvogel and William Atherstone on 6 February 1846

ABSTRACT Some 170 years ago Piet Windvogel told William Atherstone about two plant-based arrow poisons prepared and used by Khoe-San living west of the Great Kei River in the modern-day Eastern Cape interior of South Africa. Atherstone’s interest in botany and in indigenous knowledge of local plant species fed into colonial intellectual networks, as well as imperialist concerns with scientific and/or economic profit. Yet his diarised record of Windvogel’s accounts has prompted us to compile a list of potential arrow poisons for a region where such ethnohistorical information is comparatively sparse. We have narrowed these down to the most likely botanical species used in Windvogel’s poison recipes: Prunus africana or rooistinkhout for the manufacture of t’ghee poison and perhaps Euphorbia mauritanica or gifmelkbos for taah poison, although species such as Acokanthera oppositifolia or gifboom, Asclepias fruticosa or melkbos and Carissa macrocarpa or the grootnoem-noem also merit consideration.

Martin George Addy

Martin George Addy was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, the son of Walter and Helen Addy. He attended the Marling School there. He developed a lifelong interest in botany but his...

Factual knowledge of students about plants is associated with attitudes and interest in botany

ABSTRACT Plants are crucial parts of ecosystems but are traditionally considered boring and difficult by students. It is therefore not clear whether factual knowledge about plants contributes to building positive attitudes and interest in botany. We investigated whether factual knowledge about monocotyledonous plants is associated with secondary students’ attitudes toward and interest in plants. Furthermore, we examined whether self-reported plant cultivation experiences and gender differences exist in attitudes toward plants. Factual knowledge about monocotyledonous plants significantly correlated with attitudes toward plants and these attitudes were greatly influenced by interest in botany, ecology, evolution, and zoology, but not with other, more distant biological disciplines (e.g. microbiology, or health and nutrition). Females received better scores in knowledge and attitudes toward plants, but interest in plants was similar between males and females. We suggest that (1) factual knowledge in botany is essential in building positive attitudes toward plants and that (2) inter-connections between botany with zoology, ecology and evolution may help with elimination of plant blindness and building positive attitudes toward plants.

Urban Forest Fragments as a Living Laboratory for Teaching Botany: An Example from Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

Abstract—“Plant blindness” is affecting humans’ relationships with plants, which has negative consequences for both science and conservation. It is, therefore, important to find new ways to promote societal interest in botany and plants. One possibility is encouraging the use of informal settings to promote curiosity and provide education to students. Forest fragments can be regarded as open air labs for teaching botany, especially on university campuses. We aimed to formally document the angiosperm diversity in the Mata dos Saguis (MS), a fragment of Atlantic forest under restoration belonging to the central campus of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Brazil. We recorded 140 species, 113 genera in 52 families, and 24 orders of angiosperms. The MS has nearly 10% of the species and one third of all the families occurring in the entire state of Rio Grande do Norte, representing the main evolutionary groups of angiosperms, and we also recorded two new species occurrences for the state. Here we provide a checklist of the MS, a location that has been used as an open-air laboratory by many UFRN undergraduate courses in biosciences. We also share examples that can be replicated in other institutions and discuss the process of learning systematic botany in floristically rich countries by means of alternative and hands-on experiences.

QR Code technology in a sensory garden as a study tool

Abstract Sensory Gardens are considered non-formal learning environments, however, they are not used as a methodological alternative for teaching in Brazil. The installation of the QR Code in a Sensory Garden is innovative and the link to in a non-formal learning environment can attract and retain student’s attention. Our study tested the hypothesis that Public School students between the ages of 13 and 15 years old are not stimulated by subjects taught in the area of botany when exposed to non-formal learning environments. The study selected 23 students, divided into two teams, in which one obtained access to the Sensory Garden and the other team was restricted to the content addressed in the formal learning environment. ‘Diagnostic questionnaires’ were applied to assess botanical knowledge, before and after the activity, comparing results between teams. From the data obtained, it was possible to prove the effectiveness of the Sensory Garden in the student’s botanical learning process. Our results indicate that the use of QR Code technology contributed to students’ improvement and interest in botany, while arousing curiosity and enthusiasm to observe, in loco, the content previously covered in the classroom. In assessing botanical knowledge among participants, this study reported that students attending the Sensory Garden showed better performance compared to students who did not attend the Sensory Garden. Therefore, we reject the hypothesis tested and accept that the Sensory Garden using QR Code was relevant and contributed as a study tool for 13 to 15 years old students from Public High-schools.

C&EN talks with Robert Cichewicz, natural products chemist

It pains Robert Cichewicz to admit it, but as a college student, he found chemistry classes boring—full of rote memorization about reactions and reagents that seemed to have little applicability to his life. His first research endeavor as an undergraduate was in anthropology: he investigated the role of chili peppers in Mesoamerican culture, history, and medicine. That sparked a lifelong interest in plants and, ultimately, the compounds they produce. Today, while his interest in botany remains, Cichewicz has made a name for himself as a natural products chemist who searches off the beaten path for interesting structures and potential uses for them. When Cichewicz, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, became interested in natural products present in the microbiome, he looked not to humans but to other mammals, collecting microbes from roadkill that he and his students gathered. After noticing that standard fungal culture techniques tended to yield the

Uma tríade botânica na paisagem oitocentista portuense: jardins e hortos de excelência científica e económica

The present work explores the recognition of the past and present genius loci of three spaces of Porto city center as remaining and transformed representations of spaces with distinct, interconnected and pertinent botanical missions in the nineteenth century landscape of the city. Through the exploration of sources left by the interveners or graphic testimonies of the urban lands‑ cape from 1850 to the present day of these (ethno-)botanical spaces, we explore how the interveners and spaces of the Jardim Botânico da Academia Polythecnica do Porto, the Horto-pharmacêutico da Botica da Hospital Real de Santo António and the Horto das Virtudes mutually influenced. On the other hand, it is demonstrated how these spaces determined a time of special interest in botany that would not be repeated in the history of the city and its population.

Nature trails in the Atlantic Forest as a resource for teaching Botany

The teaching of Botany is inserted in the context of Biological Sciences graduate courses. Among students, Botany is one of the areas with the greatest difficulty in learning. College students should be exposed to classes that treat the ecosystem as part of an integrated environmental education program. To examine this proposition, practical activities were carried out at Parque Estadual da Pedra Branca (PEPB) and at Parque Nacional da Tijuca, State Conservation Units of Rio de Janeiro, which represent part of the rich Brazilian biodiversity. More specifically, the present paper suggests that field classes along an ecological trail could be an invaluable pedagogical alternative toward increasing students’ interest in Botany. Here, we considered plant biodiversity, litterfall, ecological relationships, morphological features and plant physiology and secondary metabolites. After the ecological trail walk, we applied a questionnaire to get students’ impressions most of which were very favorable to the field classes as a didactic resource. Most students had the first contact with a Conservation Unit of Atlantic Forest through this practice, and learned botanical and environmental aspects in situ. Consequently, we can recommend that tracks can contribute to the teaching of Botany and to a multidisciplinary approach. Besides improving student engagement and the quality of the teaching-learning process.

Briefe von Thomas Jordanus von Klausenburg an Carolus Clusius

Despite the rich literature on Thomas Jordanus von Klausenburg (1540‑1586), the most important physician and scientist of Transylvanian origin of the sixteenth century, his correspondence has hardly been studied. This article presents five letters from Jordanus to the Flemish physician Carolus Clusius (1526‑1609), a famous botanist at the imperial court and the first chief doctor of the margravate of Moravia. The letters of 1574, 1575 and 1585 to Clusius provide a new insight into Jordanus’ scholarly network, including numerous contemporary scholars, his private life only a few months before his death, and his interest in botany, including experiments with sassafras oil

Botanični vrtovi in zbiranje rastlin v luči preobrazbe botaničnih zbirk na Kranjskem

V poznem 18. in zgodnjem 19. stoletju je zbiranje tujih rastlin postalo moda, ki je zajela evropske dvore ter posledično številne plemiče, intelektualce, vrtnarje in druge. Nove rastline so tako gojili v oblikovanih vrtovih, zbirali v herbarijih in navajali v katalogih ali jih dajali upodabljati. V tem času ni bilo pomembno le samo zbiranje rastlin, ampak tudi to, da so lastniki oz. zbiratelji pridobili botanično znanje, ki jim je omogočalo, da so te rastline pravilno uporabljali in predstavljali. Na Kranjskem bi tovrstno botanično zanimanje prepoznali pri baronu Jožefu Erbergu, baronih Zois, jezuitu Gabrielu Gruberju in mnogih drugih. Aktivnosti barona Erberga, kot jih lahko razberemo iz arhivskih virov (predvsem njegove ohranjene korespondence), so tako vključevale zbiranje rastlin, njihovo izmenjavo in nakup ter zanimanje za druge botanične novosti. Med kranjskimi ljubitelji rastlin so bile posebno priljubljene pelargonije, hortenzije in agave, ki so imele pomembno mesto v oblikovanih vrtovih, pogosto znotraj predela vrta, ki je bil namenjen neavtohtonim rastlinam. Zbiranje tujih rastlin pa seveda ni le domena obravnavanega časa in prostora, saj so ga poznali že v času starih civilizacij, kot sta bili npr. asirska in kitajska, ter v 16. in 17. stoletju, in sicer v okviru priljubljenih kabinetov kuriozitet. Ob primerjanju slednjih in botaničnih zbirk zgodnjega 19. stoletja lahko prepoznamo nekatere podobnosti (zbiranje redkih, predvsem eksotičnih rastlin ter zbiranje rastlin z namenom prikazati imperialno moč), vendar so družbene spremembe 18. in 19. stoletja vplivale na botanično zbiranje ter prinesle novosti in razlike. Razvoj botanike kot znanosti, uveljavljanje botaničnega ljubiteljstva, modne rastline, zanimanje za gospodarsko donosnost posesti, spremenjeno dojemanje narave in okolja ter drugih družbenih vrednot, kot sta bili družina in država – vse to je torej okoli leta 1800 vplivalo na priljubljenost zbiranja rastlin v evropskem prostoru oz. na Kranjskem. Tako lahko zbiranje rastlin v tem času posledično vidimo tudi kot zaton in preobrazbo nekdanjih naravoslovnih kabinetov kuriozitet.

Ruth Patrick: The River Doctor

Ruth Patrick: The River Doctor

CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT ANDTHE FLORAL TELEGRAPH; OR, A FORGOTTEN CODER AND HIS FLORAL CODE

This essay examinesthe floral telegraph;A New Mode of Communication by Floral Signals, a rare Victorian novel published anonymously in 1836 and reprinted in 1850 with a new tagline –The Floral Telegraph; Or, Affection's Signals. The reprint includes an ascription to Captain Frederick Marryat, Royal Navy (1792–1848) (See Figure 5). The majority of Marryat's biographers, scholars, and archivists have doubted the posthumous ascription. Here, I challenge the critical consensus and argue that Marryat did indeed writeThe Floral Telegraphpublished in 1836 and that the attribution of 1850 is correct. I begin with a biographical sketch of Marryat, a brief synopsis of the novel, and a review of its scant, mostly skeptical reception. I then argue that the “floral code” presented in the text resembles (albeit through parody) Marryat's famous codebook for maritime flag signals and that the Captain's acknowledged interest in botany and horticulture gave him the fluency necessary to create the Table of Flowers (See Figure 6). In addition, Marryat had a strong relationship with the novel's publisher, Saunders and Otley, and he was the editor of theMetropolitan, a literary magazine which ran a favorable review shortly afterThe Floral Telegraphwas first published. The narrative also reflects Marryat's stylistic tendency to satire and parody and his ideas about literacy and widespread publication seem to be inversely reflected in the ironic digressions of the unreliable narrator, Horace Honeycomb, and the diatribe against the “cursed and abominable art of Printing” (117) offered by the inventor of the floral code, Floribel. I conclude my essay by viewingThe Floral Telegraphas representative of early Victorian issues of literacy, affect, and disembodied, long-distance communication in the age immediately preceding the advent of the electromagnetic telegraph.

Engaging students by emphasising botanical concepts over techniques: innovative practical exercises using virtual microscopy

Student interest in botany and enrolment in plant sciences courses tends to be low compared to that in other biological disciplines. One potential way of increasing student interest in botany is to focus on course material designed to raise student enthusiasm and satisfaction. Here, we introduce and evaluate virtual microscopy in botany teaching. Virtual microscopy uses high-resolution digital ‘virtual slides’ that allow students to explore microscope sections without the advanced skills required to prepare glass slides. Questionnaire feedback from students indicated that students found the virtual slides an effective learning tool. Further, we found that student performance in assessments was significantly higher when using virtual slides than when using traditional glass slides. We suggest that virtual slides are an effective tool for increasing student satisfaction in introductory botany courses, and have the potential for increasing student enrolment in higher-level courses (honours) and research degrees.

Diagnosing fossilization in the Nordic Renaissance: an investigation into the correspondence of Ole Worm (1588–1654)

Abstract Ole Worm, Professor of Medicine at Copenhagen University 1624–1654, collected natural objects and artefacts with a view to letting students learn through observation and the touch of real things. Among the objects were fossils. Through Worm’s correspondence from 1607 to 1654, his growing understanding of petrifaction and petrifactions (fossilization and fossils) and its circumstantial background in the Nordic Renaissance has been investigated. Worm studied medicine with anatomy, botany and (iatro)chemistry at European universities. He began as Professor Pædagogicus and practising physician in Copenhagen in 1613 and he pursued interests in botany and in Nordic philology supported by King Christian IV. Objects for demonstrative instruction were obtained through his correspondents and were arranged systematically in Worm’s museum. The first fossils were identified chemically as petrified mollusc shells and wood, but without attention to species and original environment. With limited zoological knowledge and little field experience, but well trained in anatomical observation and description, and well read, Worm developed his understanding of fossils. He compared sharks’ teeth and glossopetrae , adding evidence to former comparisons. Christian orthodoxy was a barrier to geological and evolutionary thinking. Worm rejected superstition and prepared the way for the scientific comprehension of fossils in the Nordic cultural sphere.

The forgotten Hermann Herbarium: A 17th century collection of useful plants from Suriname

AbstractThe National Herbarium of the Netherlands houses a 17th century, bound herbarium containing 51 dried specimens from Suriname, which was composed by the well‐known botanist Paul Hermann (1646–1695). This is considered as the oldest documented herbarium collection not only for Suriname but for the Guianas region. Most specimens are accompanied by (pre‐Linnaean) Latin or vernacular names and sometimes by Latin descriptions of the plants and their uses. To assess the importance of this collection for the present‐day flora and ethnobotany of Suriname, we identified all specimens (one by using ancient DNA analysis), translated the Latin texts, traced back the origin of the herbarium in national archives, 17th century and modern literature and compared plant names and uses with present‐day ethnobotanical data. We digitized the entire herbarium and made it available online (http://www.hermann‐herbarium.nl). The specimens were probably collected around 1687 by a certain Hendrik Meyer, who had a keen interest in botany and indigenous plant use. The 48 species in the herbarium are almost all useful plants: cultivated crops, wild edible fruits, medicinal plants, timber trees, fish poison, colorants and roof thatch material. Most species are used similarly today, and more than half of the vernacular names still exist in the region. The presence of Abelmoschus esculentus and Sesamum indicum in the herbarium prove the early establishment of African food plants in the emerging plantation economy of Suriname. Unlike Hermann's collections from Ceylon and the Cape, this herbarium was never seen by Linnaeus and therefore does not contain any type specimens.