| What is Botany? | |||
| Botany is a word of Greek derivation which has long been used as a title covering all aspects of the study and use of plants. The more modern term 'plant biology' is often used as an equivalent, but botany embraces not only the scientific study of plants, but all aspects of their relationships with man, such as their roles as sources of drugs and foods, clothing and building materials and as sources of aesthetic inspiration in art, design and recreation. Botany also grades imperceptibly into horticulture. | |||
| Plants do not have the same impact for many people that animals, particularly large mammals and birds, possess, yet plants are absolutely vital to all animal and human life on earth. All our food and oxygen come from green plants, which are the only organisms that can transform simple chemicals in the air and soil into the proteins, sugars, fats and vitamins that we need for our diet, and convert carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen. | |||
| Ireland's plant life | |||
| Ireland sits off the western edge of the great Eurasian landmass which has a vast number of plant species, but the Irish flora is very small by comparison (about 1,000 vascular plant species) because of the devastating impact of the series of ice ages that ended only about 12,000 years ago and the isolating effect of being a small island cut off from the continental mainland. By contrast the exotic or introduced flora grown as crops, timber or as ornamentals is huge and probably as much as one fifth of the world's total vascular plant flora is grown in Ireland, amounting perhaps to about 40,000 - 50,000 species. In addition to the vascular plant flora (comprising the ferns, conifers and flowering plants) there are the mosses, liverworts, marine and freshwater algae, and the fungi and lichens. | |||
| Overview of the Department of Botany | |||
| The role of the department is the recording and documentation of the flora of Northern Ireland and the development of an appreciation of plant life and botany among the general public. A vital tool of this work is the collection of some 100,000 preserved plants and plant derivatives held in the museum. | |||
| The staff provide an identification service to the public, and a general information service on all aspects of plant life and the uses of plants. The collections and departmental library are available for consultation by appointment. | |||
| (The department does not normally give advice on gardening, plant cultivation or plant diseases, but we can advise on other suitable sources of help if requested.) | |||
| The Botany Collections | |||
| A museum collection of preserved plant specimens is called an herbarium. The bulk of the specimens are preserved as pressed, dried specimens attached to sheets of paper, with a label carrying information about where the plant was collected, by whom and when, as well as the name of the plant and who identified it. In addition there is a xylarium which is a reference collection of named timber specimens, largely built up by the Museum's first Director, Arthur Deane, in the first two decades of the last century; a collection of plant medicinal products and extracts; a collection of seeds, fruits, fibres and other products; a rare book and manuscript collection and an historical collection of personalia and correspondence relating to some of the important botanists of the past who worked or lived in Northern Ireland. | |||
| The total number of accessions is around 100,000, but since one accession may cover many individual plants, the total number of specimens is much larger. | |||
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