6. Give the extended answer proving that:

Organisms place is not fixed in the hierarchy of life, no matter what method is used to classify it.

Unit 3 Botany Word Study

1. Learn the meaning of the following words:

to define	определять
acceptable	приемлемый
algae	водоросль
gross	валовой
treatise	трактат
trait	черта
to derive	извлекать
fungi	гриб
tissues	ткани
predictable	предсказуемый
nourishment	питание
dicots	двудольные
similarity	сходство
to point out	указывать на
potted willow	горшечная ива
environment	окружающая среда
to originate	зарождаться
monocots	однодольные
to gain	получать
genus	род
to imply	предполагать
to restore	восстанавливать
crop	урожай
aggregate	совокупный
advancement	продвижение
species	вид
solute	раствор
to engage	занимать
welfare	благополучие
stem	стебель

2. Read and translate the words:

photosynthesis physiology fragmenting morphology interaction cytology evolution

civilization anatomy cultivation genetics phenomena paleobotany spontaneous

interpretation pharmacology vegetative agronomy hybridization theory nomenclature

3. Translate the given word combinations:

similarities to true plants		refined analytical techniques
complicated botanical community		basic sameness of living things
for their own sake		preexisting cells
invention of the microscope		overall understanding of the evolution
acceptable theories		human welfare and advancement

Text a Botany

I. Introduction

Botany is the branch of biology concerned with the study of plants (kingdom Plantae). Plants are now defined as multicellular organisms that carry out photosynthesis. Organisms that had pre­viously been called plants, however, such as bacteria, algae, and fungi, continue to be the province of botany, because of their historical connection with the discipline and their many similarities to true plants, and because of the practicality of not fragmenting the study of organisms into too many separate fields.

Botany is concerned with all aspects of the study of plants, from the smallest and simplest forms to the largest and most complex, from the study of all aspects of an individual plant to the complex interactions of all the different members of a complicated botanical community of plants with their environment and with animals.

II. Historical Development

Because civilization rests in part on knowledge of plants and their cultivation, botany can be said to have originated with the first cultivation of crops, which may date from 9000-7000 B. C. Not until about 2300 years ago, however, did humans become interested in plants for their own sake. Thus, botany as a pure science began in the 4th century B. C. with the Greek philosopher Theophrastus, whose treatises on the classification, morphology, and reproduction of plants heavily influenced the discipline until the 17th century. Indeed, modern botany began to de­velop only about the 16th century, at least in part because of the invention of the microscope (1590) and of printing with movable type (1440).

The Greeks believed that plants derived their nourishment from the soil only. Not until the 17th century did the Belgian scientist Jan Baptista van Helmont show that, although only water was added to a potted willow, it gained nearly 75 kg (165 lb), whereas the soil it stood in lost only about 60 g (about 2 oz) of weight over a period of five years. This demonstrated that the soil contributes very little to the increase in the weight of plants. In the 18th century the English chemist Joseph Priestley demonstrated that growing plants "restore" air from which the oxygen has been removed (by the burning of candles or the breathing of animals), and the Dutch physiologist Jan Ingenhousz (1730-99) extended this observation by showing that light is re­quired for plants to restore air. These and other discoveries formed the basis for modern plant physiology, that branch of botany dealing with basic plant functions.

That water moves upward through the wood and that solutes move downward through the stems of plants was discovered independently in the 17th century by Marcello Malpighi in Italy and Nehemiah Grew in England. These facts have now been known for some 300 years, but only in the last few years have acceptable theories explaining the movements of liquids in plants been developed, using a variety of refined analytical techniques.