Basics of Botany

Price

Free

Instructors

Module Overview

Plants are fundamental to life on Earth, providing humans and other animals with food, shelter, medicine, clothing, and oxygen. The advent of agriculture around 10,000 years ago transformed human civilisation, enabling permanent settlements, population growth, and the cultivation of crop plants bred explicitly for yield and productivity. The study of botany, including the structure, physiology, classification, and ecology of plants, offers critical insight into how plants sustain life and how human societies have developed alongside them. This module aims to increase botanical literacy by going beyond plant identification to explore why particular species occur in specific environments and how they adapt to environmental factors and soil characteristics. Emphasis is placed on understanding native plant communities, adaptive traits, and genetic influences to support effective management of natural landscapes and the optimisation of plants in urban environments.