Geobotany

Geobotany is the branch of science that studies the geographic distribution of plants and their relationship to the physical environment. It examines how plant communities form, persist, and change across landscapes in response to factors such as climate, soil properties, bedrock geology, relief, hydrology, and disturbance. The field seeks to understand patterns of plant diversity and the processes that produce them, including dispersal, competition, succession, and adaptation to local conditions.

Geobotany overlaps with phytogeography, vegetation science, and ecology, and is closely linked to geology, soil science, climatology, and geography. Traditionally, it has included mapping of vegetation types and floristic surveys, as well as interpretations of past and present vegetation in relation to environmental variables. In some contexts, geobotany is used as an historical term for studies of plant-geology interactions.

Common methods include field inventories and vegetation classification, herbarium records, and the construction of geobotanical or floristic maps. Modern practice relies on geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, and spatial modeling, as well as paleoecological techniques such as pollen and macrofossil analysis to infer past vegetation.

Applications span natural resource exploration through vegetation indicators of mineral deposits, environmental monitoring and impact assessment, conservation planning, land-use management, and paleoenvironmental reconstruction for understanding climate and landscape change.

Geobotany remains a core concept in phytogeography and vegetation science, though terminology varies by region and historical period. It provides a framework for analyzing how plant life interacts with geophysical and climatic factors across scales.