1. KEY CONCEPT Humans rely on plants in many ways.

2. Agriculture provides stable food supplies for people in permanent settlements.
Botany is the study of plants.
Ethnobotany explores how people in different cultures use plants.

3. People started planting for harvest about 10,000 years ago.
wild species “tamed” through artificial selection
farming requires people to stay in one place
farming helped more socially complex centers develop
Teosinte

4. Plant products are important economic resources.
Plant products have been traded for thousands of years.
spices commonly used as currency in Middle Ages
spurred seafaring expeditions in 1400s and 1500s

5. Plant products contribute to economy on a global scale today.
grains, coffee, sugar, cotton, forest products
billions of dollars of plant products traded each year

6. Plant compounds are essential to modern medicine.
Pharmacology is the study of drugs and their effects on the body.
Many drugs are derived from plants.
Salicin from willow trees is used in aspirin.
Alkaloids are potent plant chemicals that contain nitrogen.
Alkaloids such as taxol have anti-cancer properties.

7. Some medical research focuses on properties of plant compounds.
studies plants used medicinally in traditional cultures
develop synthetic drugs based on plant compounds