**1.2. Separation of botany from medicine**

The need for accurate and detailed plant descriptions meant that some herbals were more botanical than medicinal. Herbals made contributions to botany by initiating the science of plant description, classification, and botanical illustrations. Botany and medicine were the same up to the seventeenth century, but those books that emphasized medicinal aspects omitted the plant lore and eventually became the modern pharmacopeias; those that omitted medicine became more botanical which evolved into the modern plant description compilations called *Floras* and are often backed by specimens deposited in a herbarium (a collection of dried plants that verified the plant descriptions given in the *Floras*). The transition from *Herbal* to *Floras* marked the final separation of botany from medicine [8].
