Plants living organisms essential component of global biodiversity

Plants a significant kingdom of living organisms and an essential component of global biodiversity, play a crucial role in our daily lives. Plants are significant in modern times, just as they have been crucial throughout human history. An acclaimed book on civilization and evolution explores how plants influenced the development of human cultures. Some practical uses of plants throughout history are cosmetics, food, fuel, medicine, poison, protection, shelter, and more. These samples demonstrate the significance of plants for humanity since ancient times, highlighting the importance of knowledge related to plants and their uses.

It can be inferred that humans utilized plants for survival and sustenance. The field of current botany indicates that the plant kingdom accounts for over 20% of the overall biodiversity in the biosphere and represents the largest portion of biomass, comprising 81% of the total on Earth. Considering the significant portion of the planet’s biodiversity that is made up of plants, it is evident why they play a crucial role in our everyday lives, occupying a larger space than animals. This is the reason why humans utilize plants more than any other living or non-living entities in their activities.

To accomplish sustainable utilization of plants and get enduring advantages from them, humans primarily engage in two activities: cultivating plants for harvesting plant products and identifying plants to differentiate plant species. The daily routines with plants can be seen as a form of practical knowledge, which has the potential to evolve into theoretical knowledge or a more systematic understanding. We can trace the history of botany as a “plant science” back to Nicolaus Cusanus (1450), known for his studies in plant physiology before the prominent figures of the sixteenth century, a prolific period in the Western world, based on our understanding and definition of “science.”

In the sixteenth century, botanical studies were divided into two main streams: one centered on translating and annotating Dioscorides’ De materia medica, particularly in Italian and Spanish by figures like P. A. Matthioli (d. 1577) and Andrés Laguna (d. 1559); the other in Northern Europe focused on creating new herbals, detailed observations, and precise plant illustrations, particularly in German by Leonhardt Fuchs (d. 1566). This paper does not cover books on materia medica. The sixteenth century saw the publication of several publications written by Western travelers and scholars, including tales of journeys to foreign lands, particularly the Ottoman Empire. However, these are not relevant to our topic due to space constraints.

In this study, we will critically examine the historiographical tradition and dispute the prevailing perspectives on the beginnings of botany as a scientific discipline. The binomial nomenclature of plants originated with Dioscorides and was further advanced in the Arabic manuscripts of Islamic academics during medieval times. Furthermore, as demonstrated in the latter section of this dissertation, the origins of botany as a scientific discipline can be linked back to the thirteenth century in its Latin form. In this article, we will examine botanical publications predating the thirteenth century and their influence on the development of botany as a scientific discipline. Initially, we shall examine the medieval Islamic civilization, when Arabic was the language used for scientific purposes. We shall now discuss the reception of Graeco-Arabic material in the Latin West and its significance for the development of botany as a specialized science.

The sources of Islamic philosophers can be traced back to both Aristotle and Plato, who differentiated between plants, animals, and humans. Furthermore, his three-part theory of vitality (the appetitive soul, the spirited soul, and the reasoning soul) was equally encouraging for them. Plato states in the Timaeus that plants are driven by the pursuit of desire and pleasure while avoiding suffering. Plants, being immobile, develop to provide sustenance for animals and, by extension, humans.

This teleological explanation aligns with the anthropocentric perspective, which posits humans as superior species. Recent scholarship indicates that Islamic academics in the medieval period, influenced by Ancient Greek tradition, embraced the practice of categorizing biological organisms based on the doctrine of soul. Discrimination was facilitated through many behaviors including nourishment, growth, reproduction, and types of motion. In Islamic natural philosophy, the primary distinction between plants and animals was their ability for intentional motion.

Ibn Sina’s commentary has been criticized for allegedly disregarding the second book of Nicolaus. In his volume Kitab al-Šifa, Ibn Sina wrote a book called Auscultation of Nature, often known as Book of Nature. He adds the Kitab al-Nabat (Book of Plants) as the 7th Fen under that title. It comprises seven chapters, unlike Nicolaus’s De plantis, which consists of two articles.

In his commentary “Kitab al-Nabat,” Ibn Sina refers to seven chapters as “fasl” (section, chapter). They are structured as follows: the first chapter focuses on the origin of plants, their nutrition, sexes, and characteristics; the second chapter on the components of plants; the third chapter on the fundamental principles of nutrition, sexual and asexual reproduction; the fourth chapter on the generation of plant parts; the fifth chapter discusses the transportation of plants, branches, and leaves; the sixth chapter addresses the generation of plants from fruits and seeds, and the seventh chapter covers general issues related to plant classification.

He clearly read both pieces in Kitab al-Nabat, an Arabic version of Nicolaus’s De plantis, and then synthesized them by rearranging the issues in the text. Ibn Sina included chapter titles in his writings. The impact of this treatise became more pronounced in the medieval Latin West following the translation movement in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The revival of Aristotelian philosophy encompassed not only Aristotle’s works but also other texts, including pseudo-Aristotelian treatises and works by Islamic philosophers.