Botany Certificate Requirements

The NYBG Botany Certificate Program is designed to deepen a student's scientific understanding of the plant kingdom. Students engage in subjects such as native flora, ethnobotany, ecology, and botanical nomenclature. Courses reflect the Garden's strengths in botanical science research, as well as its world-famous and unequalled resources—the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, housing some 7.4 million dried plant specimens, and the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, with its collection of more than one million cataloged items and 11 million archival documents.

During the course of the program, students will come to know plants: how they function, grow, develop, and reproduce; and learn to identify a wide array of plants by stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits.

Those in pursuit of a Certificate must complete 169 total course hours (111 required + 58 elective). Browse this page to discover what required courses are currently scheduled.


January

In class and in forays around the Garden, you'll learn to recognize the winter characteristics of native and common woody plants by bud types, leaf scars, fruit remnants, and other distinguishing marks.
263BOT332 01/15 Th 10:00am-1:00pm Slowik
NYBG

February

Get a solid grounding in the basic plant body-from the cell to the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit. We'll use dissecting and compound light microscopes to observe plant anatomy, then introduce the base-level chemistry required to understand the world more...
263BOT315C 02/02 Mo 11:00am-2:00pm Zumajo
NYBG

March

Get a solid grounding in the basic plant body-from the cell to the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit. We'll use dissecting and compound light microscopes to observe plant anatomy, then introduce the base-level chemistry required to understand the world more...
263BOT315DO 03/01 Su 10:00am-1:00pm Bijkerk
ONLINE

We will cover the role of plant hormones in growth and development, as well as plant movement, water transport through the plant body, and plant metabolism, including photosynthesis and respiration (anaerobic and aerobic).
263BOT316 03/17 Tu 4:00pm-7:00pm Alvarez
NYBG