Different Kinds Of Botanical Studies.
Forensic botanists are often regular botanists that are called in for certain crimes. They usually have no official training in forensics. However, there are a lot of different botanical specialties that can be useful in crime solving. Some of these include:
- Palynology, the study of pollen. This is especially useful if the body has been moved, because pollen in one area will be different from pollen in another area. So by looking at the pollen on a victim, you can find where the crime took place.
- Dendrochronology, the study of tree rings. Because tree rings grow annually, they can be used to find out when a crime was committed. For example, if a body was buried and the roots were damaged but kept growing, botanists could look at the damage and count the tree rings after it to find when the body was buried there.
- Limnology, the study of aquatic environments. Like pollen, different algae will grow in different areas. As explained on the previous page, by looking at the algae inside a person's lungs you can find out where they drowned.
- Systematics , the classification of plants. Plants can easily get caught on somebody's shirt or pants, and so they are good clues to find out who commited a crime. For example, if a crime was committed in a certain area, and a suspect has a flower stuck to their belt that was from that area, then they were probably at the scene of the crime.
