What is Botany? Crash Course Botany #1

Summary

Plants may seem passive, but they're full of drama and complexity. From emitting chemical signals when cut to communicating threats through their roots, plants are intricate and vital to life on Earth. Botany, the study of plants, reveals their crucial role in ecosystems, their ability to perform photosynthesis, and their historical significance in human development. This episode of Crash Course Botany explores the fascinating world of plants, their diverse forms and functions, and the ways they interact with their environment and other living beings, highlighting the importance of botanical literacy.

Takeaways

• 🌱 Plants communicate through chemical signals, like the scent of freshly cut grass, which warns other plants of potential threats.
• 🔍 Plants can distinguish between types of damage, such as mechanical damage from a lawn mower versus insect attacks, and respond accordingly.
• 🌳 Humans are a small fraction of Earth's biomass, with plants making up about 80% and mammals less than 1%.
• 🌿 The diversity of plant life is vast, ranging from towering trees to tiny green globs, and includes plants with various tastes, smells, and appearances.
• 📚 Botany is the scientific study of plants, encompassing their structure, function, genetics, and relationships with other organisms.
• 🌿 Photosynthesis is a vital process for plants, and its byproduct, oxygen, is essential for human respiration.
• 💧 Plants play a crucial role in the water and nutrient cycles, supporting life by connecting soil, atmosphere, and organisms.
• 🏡 Plants are integral to human life, from the cotton in our sheets to the food on our tables and the materials for our tools and instruments.
• 🌾 The Neolithic Revolution marked a significant shift in human-plant relationships, with agriculture enabling the growth of permanent settlements and the division of labor.
• 🌱 Indigenous and enslaved peoples have contributed invaluable knowledge to botany, such as cultivation techniques and pollination methods.
• 🌼 Botanical literacy empowers individuals to understand and appreciate the plant world, from their unique adaptations to their role in everyday life.

Q & A

Why does freshly cut grass release a sweet, summery scent?

The sweet, summery scent of freshly cut grass is actually the plant equivalent of a scream, releasing chemicals to warn nearby plants to prepare their defenses.

How can plants differentiate between mechanical damage and insect attacks?

Plants can tell the difference between mechanical damage, like from a lawn mower, and insect attacks by releasing specific chemicals. When bugs attack, plants release chemicals to attract predators of the bugs.

What percentage of Earth's biomass do plants constitute?

Plants constitute about eighty percent of Earth's biomass, while mammals make up less than one percent.

What is photosynthesis and why is it crucial for life on Earth?

Photosynthesis is the process by which plants turn water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide into energy. The oxygen produced as a byproduct is essential for most living organisms, including humans, to breathe.

How do plants contribute to the cycling of water and nutrients?

Plants cycle water and nutrients between the soil and the atmosphere. A single tree, for example, can support dozens of organisms, functioning as a bed-and-breakfast by providing shelter and food.

What was the Neolithic Revolution and its significance?

The Neolithic Revolution, occurring around ten thousand years ago, was when humans began farming and domesticating plants. This led to permanent settlements, a division of labor, and significant population growth.

Who was Maxi’diwiac and what is her contribution to botany?

Maxi’diwiac, also known as Buffalo Bird Woman, was a Hidatsa gardener who recorded her tribe’s practices for growing corn, squash, beans, and sunflowers in the early 1900s, practices still followed today.

What innovation did Edmond Albius develop in the field of botany?

Edmond Albius, while enslaved on the island of Réunion, invented a method for hand-pollinating vanilla plants, enabling profitable cultivation. His techniques are still used by vanilla growers today.

What is botanical literacy and why is it important?

Botanical literacy is the understanding of plants' language and science. It allows people to appreciate plants’ complex behaviors, such as photosynthesis and plant communication, and to make informed decisions about plant-related products and issues.

How do plants communicate and react to their environment?

Plants perceive and react to their environment through mechanisms like closing stomata to conserve water during droughts and passing signals to neighboring plants via root systems to prepare for environmental changes.

Outlines

00:00

🌱 The Hidden Drama of Plants

Plants, though seemingly calm, are constantly engaging in dramatic interactions. Freshly cut grass releases chemical signals as a distress call to nearby plants, preparing them for potential threats. Plants can distinguish between mechanical damage and insect attacks, even summoning predators to fend off herbivores. This intricate plant communication underscores the vast and often overlooked role of plants in the ecosystem. Despite their quiet presence, plants constitute 80% of the planet's biomass, far surpassing mammals.

05:01

🌿 Plants in Everyday Life

Plants are intricately woven into every aspect of our daily routines. From the cotton in our bedsheets to the oils in our soap and the food on our plates, plant derivatives are omnipresent. Our modern lives are heavily reliant on plants, whether for clothing, personal care, or sustenance. This intimate connection highlights the profound influence of plants on human existence and the environment.

10:03

🌾 The Agricultural Revolution and Beyond

The advent of agriculture around ten thousand years ago revolutionized human societies, transforming small hunter-gatherer groups into large, settled communities. This shift allowed for the development of cities and the division of labor. Throughout history, Indigenous knowledge and innovations, such as Edmond Albius's method of pollinating vanilla plants, have significantly shaped agricultural practices. Understanding plant science, or botany, is essential for recognizing these contributions and the intricate relationships between plants and people.

🌸 The Science and Literacy of Botany

Botanical literacy involves understanding the scientific principles governing plant life and their interactions with the environment. For instance, 'living stone' plants perform photosynthesis underground, and certain orchids mimic bees to facilitate pollination. This knowledge helps debunk misconceptions, like labeling salt as non-GMO. Botany encompasses much more than plant identification; it provides insights into the fundamental processes sustaining life on Earth.

🍃 Tuning into Plant Communication

Plants possess sophisticated means of perceiving and responding to their surroundings, often through mechanisms humans are only beginning to understand. They communicate distress signals and adapt to environmental changes in ways that challenge our assumptions about their passivity. Recognizing these capabilities underscores the importance of plants in maintaining ecological balance and the need for greater awareness of their role in our lives.

Keywords

💡Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is the chemical process by which plants convert water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide into energy. It is central to the survival of plants and produces oxygen as a byproduct, which is essential for human and animal life. The script highlights this process to emphasize the crucial role plants play in supporting life on Earth.

💡Chemical Communication

Chemical communication refers to the way plants release chemicals to interact with their environment and other organisms. For example, freshly cut grass releases chemicals akin to a 'scream' to warn nearby plants of damage. This concept illustrates plants' dynamic and responsive nature, countering the perception that they are passive.

💡Plant Defense Mechanisms

Plant defense mechanisms are strategies plants use to protect themselves from threats like herbivores and mechanical damage. The script mentions how plants release chemicals to attract predators of their attackers and differentiate between damage from insects and other sources. These mechanisms demonstrate plants' sophisticated ways of surviving and interacting with their environment.

💡Botany

Botany is the scientific study of plants, encompassing their structure, function, genetic traits, and relationships with other organisms. The video, titled 'Crash Course Botany,' aims to delve into these aspects to highlight the importance and complexity of plant life. It underscores the vast diversity within the plant kingdom and their critical roles in ecosystems.

💡Agriculture

Agriculture is the practice of cultivating plants and farming, which began around ten thousand years ago. This development led to permanent human settlements and the growth of civilizations. The script discusses the Neolithic Revolution, marking the shift from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural ones, showcasing how fundamental plants are to human history.

💡Plant Awareness Disparity

Plant awareness disparity refers to the tendency of humans to overlook or undervalue plants' significance and complexity. The video addresses this by encouraging viewers to recognize plants' vital roles and the intricate ways they interact with the world. This concept aims to shift perception and increase appreciation for plant life.

💡Botanical Literacy

Botanical literacy is the knowledge and understanding of plants, their functions, and their interactions. The video promotes developing this literacy to appreciate plants' roles better and to understand scientific concepts like photosynthesis and plant communication. It is essential for recognizing plants' contributions to ecosystems and human life.

💡Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are living organisms whose genetic material has been altered through genetic engineering. The script uses the example of GMO crops with insect-resistant genes from soil bacteria to explain GMOs. It also humorously debunks the idea of non-GMO salt, highlighting the importance of understanding what GMOs are and are not.

💡Indigenous Knowledge

Indigenous knowledge refers to the traditional, generational wisdom about plants and their uses, held by Indigenous Peoples. The script mentions Maxi’diwiac, a Hidatsa gardener, to illustrate how such knowledge has contributed to agricultural practices. It acknowledges the value of this wisdom in shaping botany and sustainable plant cultivation methods.

💡Plant-Animal Interactions

Plant-animal interactions are the various ways plants and animals influence each other's lives. The script provides examples like orchids that mimic bees to attract pollinators and plants that release chemicals to attract predators of herbivores. These interactions show the interconnectedness of ecosystems and the active roles plants play within them.

Highlights

The scent of freshly cut grass is the plant equivalent of a scream, signaling a warning to nearby plants to prepare for damage.

Plants can differentiate between mechanical damage and insect attacks, releasing specific chemicals to attract predators of the attacking insects.

Plants make up 80% of the biomass on Earth, while humans and other mammals constitute less than 1%.

Botany is the scientific study of plants, encompassing everything from towering redwoods to tiny Wolffia globosa.

Plants play crucial roles in ecosystems, including oxygen production, water cycling, and providing habitats for various organisms.

Humans have a long history of using plants for food, medicine, clothing, and shelter, with agriculture significantly shaping human societies.

Indigenous knowledge and practices have greatly contributed to botany, as seen in the Hidatsa gardener Maxi’diwiac's methods and Edmond Albius's vanilla pollination technique.

Plants use photosynthesis to convert sunlight into energy, producing oxygen as a byproduct essential for animal life.

Botanical literacy involves understanding plant structures, functions, and their interactions with other organisms, including humans.

Plants can communicate stress signals to neighboring plants through their roots, helping them prepare for environmental changes.

Human agriculture, starting around 10,000 years ago, transformed wild plants into crops and supported the development of large, permanent settlements.

The study of plants reveals their vital role in the environment, providing insights into their communication, defense mechanisms, and overall impact on life on Earth.

Plants are integral to everyday human life, present in items such as cotton sheets, coffee, avocado toast, and even baseball bats.

Botany uncovers the complex and often unseen relationships between plants and other living organisms, highlighting the interconnectedness of life.

Understanding plants' secrets and their communication can enrich our appreciation and knowledge of the natural world.

Transcripts

The world of plants may seem quiet and calm.

But you don’t need to go much farther than your front door to find drama afoot.

Like, that sweet, summery scent of freshly cut grass?

It’s actually the plant  equivalent of a scream.

Through chemicals, grass is sounding a warning call to nearby plants,

which start putting up their defensive dukes,

getting ready to protect themselves from damage.

And plants are smart.

They can tell the difference between mechanical damage,

like that lawn mower,

and being chomped by an insect.

If bugs are attacking,

plants can release special chemicals  that yell to other bugs nearby,

"Please come eat whatever's eating me.”

So your quiet, summer afternoon

has just turned into a plant action movie,

complete with elaborate fight sequences.

We humans think we’re such a big deal,

but if you squished up every living  thing on the planet into one big ball,

eighty percent of it would be plants,

and less than one percent would be mammals.

Some folks say we’re missing the forest for the trees,

but we’re also missing the trees!

And the ferns, and the mosses,

and the palms and the sedges.

There’s a whole other world here,

and it’s all around us.

You see, plants aren’t just a bunch of wallflowers.

You just weren’t a part of their group chat yet.

But that’s all about to change,

and they have so much dirt to dish out.

Hi! I'm Alexis, and this is Crash Course Botany.

[THEME MUSIC]

Botany is the scientific study of plants.

That includes the huge ones, like towering 300-foot tall coastal redwood trees,

and the tiny ones, like Wolffia globosa:

green globs the size of a candy sprinkle.

It includes the tasty plants, like sweet corn and mangoes;

the super-stinky plants, like the corpse flower;

and the super-stinky and tasty plants, like the durian.

There are plants that look like brains,

plants that look like rocks,

even plants that look like Demogorgons.

Botany is all about this kaleidoscope of plant life.

It’s the science of plants’ structure and their function,

the way their parts work and how their genetic traits pass on.

But it’s also about plants’ relationship to other living things, including us.

And it’s no overstatement to say our lives

—and the lives of every other creature on Earth—

depend on plants.

You’ve probably heard of photosynthesis,

the chemical process that plants use to turn water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide

into energy for them to live on.

Well, the oxygen that comes out of that process is a byproduct,

or something that’s made by  the nature of the process,

not on purpose.

And that incidental byproduct just happens to be

the thing we evolved to breathe.

Which, when you stop to think about it, is pretty amazing.

Plants also cycle water and nutrients that all living things need

between the soil and the atmosphere and back again.

Even a single tree can be an all-in-one bed-and-breakfast

for dozens of organisms.

Like a fully alive combination Airbnb and Taco Bell.

In fact, once you start noticing how deep this

“plants are connected to everything” business goes, it’s hard to stop.

Plants are not just in your garden

or your bathtub or the woods behind your house.

They’re in nearly everything.

Let’s head to the Thought Bubble…

From the moment you wake up, you’re already in touch with plants

—because you spent all night wrapped up in sheets made of cotton fibers.

Stumble into the shower, and plants are there, too.

You grab a luffa, which is actually a dried-out tropical gourd.

Give yourself a scrub and you come out smelling like a rose

—because the oils in your soap came from roses.

Your toothpaste contains cellulose gum,

the same stuff that plants’ cell walls are made of.

And it’s spiced with a little flavor from a mint plant.

Your floss glides against your gums with the help of carnauba wax,

which comes  from palm tree leaves.

And when you spot a little volcano erupting on your chin,

you dab on some acne medication.

It’ll work its magic thanks to oil from the Australian tea tree.

You’re running late by now, but there’s still time to get some breakfast.

The kitchen smells like freshly-brewed coffee,

made from beans of the Coffea plant,

and you grab some avocado toast

—a combo of wheat grown to be pest-resistant,

spread with the insides of a big, green, buttery berry.

Triple-threat that you are,

you grab your baseball bat (made from a maple tree),

your clarinet  (made from an African blackwood tree),

and your lines for the play (printed on paper from a pine tree).

And don’t forget to dodge falling acorns on the way out.

This is a plant’s world; you’re just living in it.

Thanks, Thought Bubble.

For most of humans’ time on Earth,

we gathered plants from the wild.

See a berry, eat a berry.

Find some tubers, share ‘em with your friends.

But around ten thousand years ago,

some of us struck up a deal with plants:

“Hey, we’ll stash your seeds and help you grow on purpose.

In return, give us food we don’t have to wander for.”

This alliance with plants was a history-bending, society-shaping big deal.

It changed how people related to food and to each other,

turning some people into farmers and some plants into crops.

Which, in the case of teosinte’s transformation into corn,

was a major makeover.

We call it the Neolithic Revolution.

Agriculture turned small, mobile groups of people

into big, permanent settlements,

where more food was grown, supporting more people.

Soon those people started splitting up work,

so only some people were in charge of growing food while

others became shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and YouTubers.

And, over time, this allowed human populations to grow dramatically.

Eventually, thanks to the powers of agriculture and transportation combined,

people could choose to live in cities or rural areas, because

foods could be predictably produced and moved to people,

instead of people moving to them.

So agriculture is a big part of the plant-and-people story.

But there are lots of other ways we’ve used plants:

as medicines and poisons,

in our clothes and shelter.

And the big field of botany is shaped by  diverse ways of relating to and knowing plants.

Like, all over the world,

Indigenous Peoples have passed on generational knowledge of plants local to them.

For example, the Hidatsa gardener Maxi’diwiac,

also known as Buffalo Bird Woman, helped record her tribe’s ways of growing corn,

squash, beans, and sunflowers in the early 1900s—

using practices gardeners still follow today.

Botany has also been shaped by the knowledge of enslaved people throughout history,

like Edmond Albius.

In the 1840s, when Albius was only twelve years old

and enslaved on the island of Réunion,

he invented a way of pollinating vanilla plants by hand,

making it possible to grow them profitably.

Albius was freed a few years later, when slavery was abolished on the island.

To this day, vanilla growers still use his techniques.

People like Maxi’diwiac and Albius had a secret weapon in their arsenal:

close observation and knowledge of plants.

And anyone can develop it, in the form of botanical literacy.

That’s information that helps you read the language of the plant world

and understand the science surrounding it.

Like, remember when I said plants use sunlight for photosynthesis?

Well, the leaves of “living stone” plants found mostly in hot, dry areas of Africa,

act like fiber optic cables— they bring sunlight underground

so that the plant can perform photosynthesis where it's cooler.

Or another thing speaking the language of plants lets you in on:

some orchids can produce bee-shaped flowers—

which fake bees out so that they’ll pollinate  what they think are potential mates.

With botanical literacy, you can also give an appropriate amount of side-eye

to a package of Himalayan salt that’s labeled “not genetically modified.”

Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs,

are living things with genes that have  been altered in ways that don’t happen in nature.

Like, scientists have created insect-resistant GMO crops

by giving them genes from soil bacteria

— genes they wouldn’t be able to obtain  just by breeding with other plants.

So that non-GMO salt label

…doesn’t make sense.

Because salt is a mineral, not a plant or an animal,

and has no genes to modify to begin with.

We’ll be getting more into GMOs in a later episode.

The point is: botany is about much more than knowing your

begonias from your bougainvilleas.

Although that part can be fun, too.

But if you’ve never really noticed  plants before, you’re not alone. 

[TV static] Do plants just fade into the background for you?

Because they’re mostly green,

do you tend to lump their features together into a solid wall of color?

Are you, like other humans, drawn to things that move and look like you?

Well, you might just have plant awareness disparity.

The cure is watching Crash Course Botany.

So, yeah, plants are like… the elephant in the room.

Even that phrase doesn’t reference plants.

Can we coin a new version?

When something’s like right in front of  you, but no one’s talking about it,

let’s call it “the bamboo in the room.”

“The tomato in the room?”

“The giant redwood in the room.”

Because when we don’t take heed of the bustling community

of shoots, vines, and leaves around us,

we allow sneaky false assumptions to take root instead.

We start to think things like, “Plants don’t do anything,”

or “Humans are running this show.”

But if you’ve ever broken out in welts from brushing against poison ivy,

or seen a telephone pole swallowed up by a Kudzu vine,

well, you know plants do things.

And we’re not as in control as we think.

The truth is, plants do perceive and react to the world around them

—just not in the ways people do.

They have their own ways of communicating and sensing information,

which botany can help us tune into and understand.

Like, plants can’t move when a threat is around.

But they can share information about incoming danger.

When a plant isn’t getting enough to drink, for example,

tiny openings on its leaves called stomata start to close up to conserve water.

Signals about their stressed state can pass to any neighboring plants that touch roots,

so those plants know to prepare for drought by closing their stomata, too.

Botanists only recently learned

—and are still learning—

about how roots allow plant communication to happen

just beyond our perception.

So if you haven’t thought much about plants yet,

there’s still time.

They’re waiting for you.

And possibly gossiping about you.

To find out, you need to get in the group chat.

It can be easy not to pay plants much notice in everyday life.

But you’re connected to them all the same.

Without plants, you wouldn’t  just not have hot cocoa or chalupas—

you wouldn’t be alive.

None of us would be.

And there’s much to be gained by turning your attention to plants.

Plants shelter us, clothe us, medicate us, feed us, and oxygenate us.

We’ve structured our  civilizations around them,

and they, in turn, make life possible for us and other organisms.

By studying plants, we can understand forces that shape our lives—

and tune into the quiet communication that’s happening all around us.

Let’s start learning some of plants’ secrets.

Hey, before we go, let’s branch out!

Chewing gum was first invented using chicle,

a substance that comes from what kind of tree?

If you head down to the comments ASAP, I’m sure you’ll find the answer! 

Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Botany

which was filmed at the Damir Ferizović Studio

and made in partnership with  PBS Digital Studios and Nature.

If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever,

you can join our community on Patreon.