Who is called the “father of botany”?

Botany is the scientific study of plants. The ancient Greek Theophrastus (371–286 B.C.E.) is known as the father, or founder, of botany. He wrote two large books, On the History of Plants and On the Causes of Plants. These books contained so much information about plants that 1,800 years went by before any new discovery in botany was made. Theophrastus was the first person to include the practice of agriculture (growing plants for food) into botany. He also developed a theory of plant growth and wrote about how plants were structured. He identified and described 550 different plants. Theophrastus spent most of his time in Athens, Greece, where he was in charge of the first existing botanical garden.