batology

From Ancient Greek βάτον (báton, “blackberry”) +‎ -ology.

batology (uncountable)

1. (botany) The scientific study of plants in the genus Rubus, commonly known as brambles.
   • 1905, Berthold Seemann, editor, Journal of Botany: British and Foreign‎, volume 43, page 202:

     […] more than another that has always been clearly recognized by British botanists, it is R. leucostachys, in spite of the various forms, which, before they were detected as hybrids, were often a puzzle to our predecessors in British batology.

   • 1999, The Naturalist, volumes 124-127, page 112:

     Further knowledge of Rubus plant geography is steadily emerging, particular[ly] as co-workers such as D. Grant and T. Schofield are also contributing substantially to Yorkshire batology.

   • 2005, Lisa Robertson, “Rubus Armeniacus: A Common Architectural Decorative Motif in the Temperate Mesophytic Region”, in Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture, page 125:

     In Species Plantarum, in 1753, Linnaeus identified two European species of Rubus within the large five-petaled family Rosa, thus beginning one of taxonomy′s largest studies — batology.

• batologist

• E. Monasterio-Huelin, S. Castroviejo, Typification of the Names of Iberian Rubus Species Described by Sampaio, Taxon, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp. 601-608