When the Academy dome was designed, the descriptive sciences of life had stabilized into zoology, which studied animals, and botany, which studied plants. This distinction had its roots in a longstanding criterion of self-movement — animals could crawl, walk, or swim, while plants were rooted in place. In the modern era, naturalists interested in classification generally specialized in either animals or plants. They collected and bred living specimens in zoos or botanical gardens, and studied the individuals and their groups, searching for similarities and differences. They also collected preserved or fixed specimens into vast collections of natural history museums. In the image, Botany is engaged in both of these activities. Two smaller images depict common plants that were important to the development of botany in the period surrounding the design of the Academy dome. The generation of the common pea plant emerged as a major boon to the theory of evolution, providing crucial and productive evidence of the mechanism by which evolution operates. It also led to the development of genetics, when part of the cell was identified as the carrier of the characteristics passed from parent to offspring. Botany, previously considered just a classification activity, showed its utility for other biological issues. The sunflower facing the sun may represent the utility of practical botany for agriculture and plant science, much as the pea plant represents its utility for theory.