There are many ways to study plants. The modern science of botany developed out of medicine, beginning with the identification of plants used for medicinal purposes. The need to identify, describe, name, and classify plants, i.e., to catalog them, is basic to botany, because without this, one would not be able to communicate with others about specific kinds of plants. This aspect of botany is called taxonomy or systematics. The need to study and accurately describe the structure of plants led to the development of fields of morphology and anatomy.
Paleobotany is the study of fossil plants.
There are other fields of botany specializing in the study of particular plant groups. Algology or phycology is the study of algae, mycology of fungi, bryology of mosses and liverworts, and pteridology of ferns. Plants Endangered plants . Threatened plants . As identified by the Illinois Endangered Species Protection Board in their 1994 publication, Checklist of Endangered and Threatened Animals and Plants of Illinois .