"A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specializes in this field. The term 'botany' comes from the Ancient Greek word βοτάνη (botanē) meaning 'pasture,' 'herbs,' 'grass,' or 'fodder'; βοτάνη is in turn derived from βόσκειν (boskein), 'to feed' or 'to graze'."
The study of plants, their structure, behavior, and relationship to their environment.
"Traditionally, botany has also included the study of fungi and algae by mycologists and phycologists respectively..."
"Nowadays, botanists (in the strict sense) study approximately 410,000 species of land plants..."
"Botany originated in prehistory as herbalism with the efforts of early humans to identify – and later cultivate – plants that were edible, poisonous, and possibly medicinal..."
"Medieval physic gardens, often attached to monasteries, contained plants possibly having medicinal benefit."
"One of the earliest was the Padua botanical garden. These gardens facilitated the academic study of plants."
"Efforts to catalogue and describe their collections were the beginnings of plant taxonomy..."
"...and led in 1753 to the binomial system of nomenclature of Carl Linnaeus that remains in use to this day for the naming of all biological species."
"...new techniques were developed for the study of plants, including methods of optical microscopy and live cell imaging, electron microscopy, analysis of chromosome number, plant chemistry and the structure and function of enzymes and other proteins."
"Botanists exploited the techniques of molecular genetic analysis, including genomics and proteomics and DNA sequences to classify plants more accurately."
"Modern botany is a broad, multidisciplinary subject with contributions and insights from most other areas of science and technology. Research topics include the study of plant structure, growth and differentiation, reproduction, biochemistry and primary metabolism, chemical products, development, diseases, evolutionary relationships, systematics, and plant taxonomy."
"Dominant themes in 21st-century plant science are molecular genetics and epigenetics, which study the mechanisms and control of gene expression during differentiation of plant cells and tissues."
"Botanical research has diverse applications in providing staple foods, materials such as timber, oil, rubber, fibre and drugs, in modern horticulture, agriculture and forestry, plant propagation, breeding and genetic modification, in the synthesis of chemicals and raw materials for construction and energy production, in environmental management, and the maintenance of biodiversity." Please note that the given paragraph is quite extensive, so it was challenging to find direct quotes for all 20 questions. However, I provided relevant quotes for the majority of the questions.