Galactic Botanical Society

The Galactic Botanical Society, also known historically as the Botanists' Guild, was a large organization of botanists who catalogued, researched, and sought to preserve plants and fungi. Researchers estimate that more than 98% of all plant and fungal life in the known galaxy is catalogued in the organization's records. They often worked in cooperation with the Galactic Republic's Department of Agriculture and many smaller botanical organizations. They were founded on Coruscant, but by the modern era their headquarters was located on Alderaan.

As plant species, being spread across numerous star systems, often evolved to have drastically different genetic structures than their predecessors, the Galactic Botanical Society was crucial in that they were relied upon to provide viable information on all plant-life. Supreme Chancellor Yudio Mestici, who reigned in circa 250 BBY, was even quoted as saying "without the information provided by these botanists, the farmers on which we rely would have probably unknowingly produced and distributed toxic plants to the general population, or plants of insufficient nutritional value. Furthermore, our space explorers and military scouts also rely on this information so that they are prepared for what plantlife they might encounter on worlds they explore - harmful or otherwise."

History
The organization was founded as the Botanists' Guild around the same time that the Galactic Republic was formed, and initially directly worked with the Republic government to provide critical information to farmers. Members of the Botanists' Guild were present in virtually every colonial expedition to assist with terraforming, and to record the progress of terraformed worlds. By the end of the New Sith Wars, the Botanists' Guild had become a private organization and had thousands of greenhouses, farms, seed vaults, and botanical research facilities across Republic space, and even maintained a fleet of research ships known as the Botanical Fleet, which often served alongside Republic Navy warships during patrols of lesser-explored regions of Republic space. It is unknown when the Botanists' Guild relocated their headquarters to Alderaan, though historians estimate that the last natural woodlands on Coruscant were urbanized some five millennia prior to the New Sith Wars, and this would have likely driven Coruscanti botanists to relocate to a more nature-driven planet.

In 134 BBY, the Botanists' Guild was renamed the Galactic Botanical Society after it absorbed numerous other botanical organizations from other Core systems.