The definitions shown below are not complete but simple introductions. Most of them have been taken from Wikipedia.

In biology, binomial nomenclature is the formal method of naming species. As the word "binomial" suggests, the scientific name of a species is formed by the combination of two terms: the genus name and the species descriptor. Although the fine detail will differ, there are certain aspects which are universally adopted:

- Scientific names are usually printed in italics, such as Homo sapiens. When handwritten they should be underlined.

- The first term (genus name / generic name) is always capitalized, while the specific descriptor (in zoology, the "specific name", in botany, the "specific epithet") never is, even when derived from a proper name. For example, Canis lupus or Anthus hodgsoni. Note that this is a modern convention: Carolus Linnaeus always capitalized the specific descriptor, and up to the early 20th century it was common to capitalize the specific descriptor if it was based on a proper name. Although not correct according to modern practices, a capitalized specific descriptor is sometimes still used in non-scientific literature based on older sources.

- In scholarly texts, the main entry for the binomial is followed by the abbreviated (botany) or full (zoology) surname of the scientist who first published the classification. If the species was assigned to a different genus in the description than it is today, the abbreviation or name of the describer and the description date is set in parentheses. For example: Amaranthus retroflexus L. or Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) - the latter was originally described as member of the genus Fringilla, hence the parentheses.

- When used with a common name, the scientific name usually follows in parentheses. For example, "The house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is decreasing in Europe."

- The scientific name should generally be written in full when it is first used or when several species from the same genus are being listed or discussed in the same paper or report. It may then be abbreviated by just using an initial (and period) for the genus; for example Canis lupus becomes C. lupus. In rare cases this abbreviation form has spread to more general use — for example the bacterium Escherichia coli is often referred to as just E. coli, and Tyrannosaurus rex is perhaps even better known simply as T. rex.

- The abbreviation "sp." (zoology) or "spec." (botany) is used when the actual specific name cannot or need not be specified. The abbreviation "spp." (plural) indicates "several species". For example: "Canis sp.", meaning "one species of the genus Canis".

- Easily confused with the former is the abbreviation "ssp." (zoology) or "subsp." (botany) indicates an unspecified subspecies (see also trinomen, ternary name). "sspp." or "subspp." indicates "a number of subspecies".

- The abbreviation "cf." is used when the identification is not confirmed. For example Corvus cf. splendens indicates "a bird similar to the House Crow but not certainly identified as this species".

- Mycology uses the same system as in botany.

- Binomial nomenclature is also referred to as the 'Binomial Classification System'.

A botanical name is a formal name conforming to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN). The purpose of such a formal name is to have a single name that is accepted and used worldwide for a particular plant or plant group. For example the botanical name Bellis perennis is used worldwide for a plant species , which has a history of many centuries in most of the countries of Europe and the Middle East: it has accumulated names in the many languages of that area. Later this plant was introduced worldwide, bringing it into contact with languages on all continents. English names for this plant species include lawndaisy, common daisy, daisy, etc.

The usefulness of botanical names is limited by the fact that taxonomic groups are not fixed in size: a taxon may have a varying circumscription. That is, the group that a particular botanical name refers to can be quite small according to some people and quite big according to others. This will depend on taxonomic viewpoint or taxonomic system. The traditional view of the family Malvaceae sets the size of the family at over a thousand species, but in the modern approach it counts over four thousand species. The botanical name itself is fixed by a type, the size and placement of the taxon it applies to is set by a taxonomist. Some botanical names refer to groups that are very stable (for example Leguminosae) while other names are notorious in that a careful check is needed (for example Fabaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Urticaceae, etc).

Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911) was arguably the most important British botanist of the nineteenth century. A traveller and plant-collector, he was one of Charles Darwin’s closest friends and eventually became director of Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Botanist, biogeographer and traveller. The younger son of Sir William Jackson Hooker and his wife Maria, daughter of Dawson Turner. Hooker was born at Halesworth, Suffolk, on 30 June 1817. He was educated at Glasgow High School and later at Glasgow university, where his father was regius professor of botany. He graduated M.D. in 1839. Hooker attended his father’s university botany lectures from the age of seven and formed an interest in plant distribution. Another early enthusiasm was travellers’ tales – he recalled sitting on his grandfather’s knee, looking at the pictures in Captain Cook’s Voyages. He was particularly struck by one of Cook’s sailors killing penguins on Kerguelen’s Land, and he remembered thinking that, ‘I should be the happiest boy alive if ever I would see that wonderful arched rock, and knock penguins on the head’ (Huxley 1918: 6).

Hooker was not the only one who saw Darwin as a role model; Ross wanted ‘such a person as Mr. Darwin’ as the expedition’s naturalist, but felt that Hooker had not yet proved himself of Darwin’s calibre. After Ross appointed him to the inferior position of expedition’s botanist, Hooker complained to his father ‘what was Mr. D. before he went out? he, I daresay, knew his subject better than I now do, but did the world know him? the voyage with FitzRoy was the making of him (as I hoped this exped. would me)’ (Huxley 1918: 41).

To Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker Web page

An entity-relationship diagram, is a graphical representation of entities and their relationships to each other, typically used in computing in regard to the organization of data within databases or information systems. An entity is a piece of data—an object or concept about which data is stored. A relationship is how the data is shared between entities. There are three types of relationships between entities:

• one-to-one: one instance of an entity (A) is associated with one other instance of another entity (B). For example, in a database of employees, each employee name (A) is associated with only one social security number (B).
• one-to-many: one instance of an entity (A) is associated with zero, one or many instances of another entity (B), but for one instance of entity B there is only one instance of entity A. For example, for a company with all employees working in one building, the building name (A) is associated with many different employees (B), but those employees all share the same singular association with entity A.
• many-to-many: one instance of an entity (A) is associated with one, zero or many instances of another entity (B), and one instance of entity B is associated with one, zero or many instances of entity A. For example, for a company in which all of its employees work on multiple projects, each instance of an employee (A) is associated with many instances of a project (B), and at the same time, each instance of a project (B) has multiple employees (A) associated with it.

Exploration is the act of searching or traveling for the purpose of discovery, e.g. of unknown regions, including space (space exploration), for oil, gas, coal, ores, caves, water (also known as prospecting), or information.

The term can also be used to describe the first incursions of peoples from one culture into the geographical and cultural environment of others. Although exploration has existed as long as human beings, its peak is seen as being during the Age of Exploration when European navigators travelled around the world discovering new worlds and cultures.

In scientific research, exploration is one of three purposes of research (the other two being description and explanation). Exploration is the attempt to develop an initial, rough understanding of some phenomenon.

To Wikipedia's definition of Exploration

Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1-10 cm tall, occasionally more. They commonly grow close together in clumps or mats in damp or shady locations. They do not have flowers or seeds, and their simple leaves cover the thin wiry stems. At certain times mosses produces spore capsules which may appear as beak-like capsules borne aloft on thin stalks.

Botanically, mosses are bryophytes, or non-vascular plants. They can be distinguished from the apparently similar liverworts (Marchantiophyta or Hepaticae) by their multi-cellular rhizoids. Other differences are not universal for all mosses and all liverworts, but the presence of clearly differentiated "stem" and "leaves", the lack of deeply lobed or segmented leaves, and the absence of leaves arranged in three ranks, all point to the plant being a moss.

The division Bryophyta formerly included not only mosses, but also liverworts and hornworts. These other two groups of bryophytes now are often placed in their own divisions.

In addition to lacking a vascular system, mosses have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, i.e. the plant's cells are haploid for most of its life cycle. Sporophytes (i.e. the diploid body) are short-lived and dependent on the gametophyte. This is in contrast to the pattern exhibited by most "higher" plants and by most animals. In vascular plants, for example, the haploid generation is represented by the pollen and the ovule, whilst the diploid generation is the familiar flowering plant.

To Wikipedia's definition of a Moss

In biology, phylogenetics (Greek: phylon = tribe, race and genetikos = relative to birth, from genesis = birth) is the study of evolutionary relatedness among various groups of organisms (e.g., species, populations). Also known as phylogenetic systematics, phylogenetics treats a species as a group of lineage-connected individuals over time. Phylogenetic taxonomy, which is an offshoot of, but not a logical consequence of, phylogenetic systematics, constitutes a means of classifying groups of organisms according to degree of evolutionary relatedness.

To Wikipedia's definition of a Phylogeny

The National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with academic institutions, botanical gardens, freshwater and marine institutes, and natural history museums, seeks to enhance and stimulate taxonomic research and help prepare future generations of experts. NSF announces a special competition, Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET), to support competitively reviewed research projects that target groups of poorly known organisms. This effort is designed to encourage the training of new generations of taxonomists and to translate current expertise into electronic databases and other formats with broad accessibility to the scientific community.

To PEET's Project Web page.

Biological systematics is the study of the diversity of life on the planet earth, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Systematics, in other words, is used to understand the evolutionary history of life on earth. The term "systematics" is sometimes used synonymously with "taxonomy" and may be confused with "scientific classification." However, taxonomy is properly the describing, identifying, classifying, and naming of organisms, while "classification" is focused on placing organisms within groups that show their relationships to other organisms. All of these biological disciplines can be involved with extinct and extant organisms. However, systematics alone deals specifically with relationships through time, requiring recognition of the fossil record when dealing with the systematics of organisms.

To Wikipedia's definition of Systematics

Taxonomy (from Greek verb τασσεῖν or tassein = "to classify" and νόμος or nomos = law, science, cf "economy") was once only the science of classifying living organisms (alpha taxonomy), but later the word was applied in a wider sense, and may also refer to either a classification of things, or the principles underlying the classification. Almost anything, animate objects, inanimate objects, places, and events, may be classified according to some taxonomic scheme.

To Wikipedia's definition of Taxonomy