botanic

Botanic is an adjective that relates to botany, the scientific study of plants. The term is used to describe things connected with plants or with the science of plant life, including plant form, function, diversity, and evolution. Common collocations include botanic garden, botanic nomenclature, and botanic medicine. The word derives from Latin botanicus, from Greek botane, "plant" or "herbage."

Botany encompasses disciplines such as plant anatomy and morphology, physiology, taxonomy and systematics, ecology, genetics, paleobotany, and ethnobotany. Its aims include describing plant diversity, understanding plant processes, and applying knowledge to agriculture, medicine, and conservation.

Historically, plant knowledge dates to ancient civilizations; organized study emerged in ancient Greece with Theophrastus and later Dioscorides. Modern botany formed during the scientific revolution and matured with Carl Linnaeus's classification system in the 18th century, the development of plant physiology in the 19th century, and advances in molecular biology in the 20th and 21st centuries. Botanic gardens and herbaria became central to research and education, cultivating living collections, maintaining reference specimens, and supporting conservation.

Today, botanic in everyday usage often appears in fixed phrases and institutional names, notably botanic gardens and pharmacopoeias describing plant-based medicines. Although botanical is the more common general adjective for the field, botanic persists in specific contexts and compound words.