| 1856 | System Garden established - The botanical garden was laid out by Edward La Trobe Bateman on a round plan with concentric beds and paths on approximately four acres in the north western corner of the University grounds. |
| 1870s | System garden: an octagonal glass house was built with a central brick tower. |
| 1906 | The Botany Library commences in Professor Ewart's room, and is built up as a departmental library especially after moving to the new Botany Building in 1929 |
| 1917 | Professor Alfred James Ewart writes to the Council that he is still in temporary accomodation, although student numbers have risen to more than 200 in the four year botany course. He pleads for a 'Botanical Building' to be erected. |
| 1925 | H.M.R Rupp donates his collection of pressed plants to the University, which forms the beginning of the Herbarium |
| 29 November 1929 | Premier William McPherson opens the new Botany building. Funds had been so low that comforts like heating and shelving had been foresaken so that the installation of benches in the lecture theatres and darkroom were possible. |
| 1938 - 1974 | Chairman of Department: John Stewart Turner |
| 1939 - 1945 | Dept utilised as part of the war effort: vegetation survey of Victoria for the army (R.T. Patton), cleaning & proofing of optical munitions against fungal attack (E.I. McLennan), curating of Penicillium cultures, search for other soilborne antibiotics etc |
| c. 1945 - c. 1955 | From the latter war years, and into the early 1950s, large teams of staff and students work regularly in January on the Victorian Alps project in conjunction with the State Electricity Commission and Soil Conservation Authority. |
| 1946 | New wing of Botany school opens |
| 1950s | Turner fosters experimental vegetation analysis with his students while D.W. Goodall pioneers his mathematical methodology for the classification of vegetation. The ecological bias of the dept leads to soil-fungi distribution studies (McLennan & students) |
| 1950s | The 'Brown Coal Research Unit', a Turner initiative, is funded jointly by the University of Melbourne, CSIRO and State Electricity Commission. The small staff of this unit pioneer the descriptions of the plant remains of the Latrobe Valley Brown Coals. |
| 1950s | In the late 1950s, another unit in collaboration with the CSIRO and Division of Food Preservation is established to research the physiology of fruit ripening. |
| 1960 | Ecology is becoming a key area, and Ray Specht is appointed Reader |
| 1961 | The need and search for a permanent field station arises and one is specially built, the laboratory called 'McLennan' in the Wilson's Promontory National Park |
| 1961 | Two major developments take place greatly facilitating the expansion of the department - the provision of an entire floor in the Barry Building for accomodating first year teaching & the erection of a new wing in the northern side of the Botany Building. |
| 1961 | New fields of research emerge - fine structure molecular biology and electron microscopy. |
| 1962 | Australian Universities Commission finances a 'state of the art' electron microsope the - a Siemens Elmiskop I. Soon after, special appointments are made to service and coordinate the newly established combined biology courses for first year |
| 1962 | Completion of new wing |
| 1966 - 1967 | An additional chair of botany was created and filled by Carrick Chambers in January 1967 |
| 1967 - 1969 | The Universities come on tougher times and 1967 sees the beginning of severe financial cuts (the famous '7% cut') which takes effect in 1968 - 1969 through to the early seventies. |
| 1970s | Under the Departmental Statute, each department is required to forward to the Vice Chancellor through the Dean of the appropriate faculty, a nomination for Chairman (later known as Head). |
| 1974 | The 'Chair of Botany and Plant Physiology' is vacant and its title changed to the 'Chair of Botany' to which Bruce Knox is appointed. This brings a new area of research into the School, pollination biology and the study of recognition systems in plants |
| 1975 - 1979 | Chairman of Department: Donald Malcolm Calder |
| 1980 | University is supported by the Commonwealth governments 'Centres for Excellence Scheme', of a joint proposal from Knox and Adrienne Clark for a Centre for Plant Cell Biology. |
| 1980 - 1984 | Chairman of Department: Thomas Carrick Chambers |
| 1985 | Chairman of Department: Peter Attiwill |
| 1995 | The School of Botany Foundation is formed to raise funds for training plant scientists and to guide in the allocation of funds |
| 1996 | Award: NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship - C. Suphioglu |
| 1998 | Award: Frederick White Prize - G. McFadden |
| 1998 | Award: Victoria Fellowship - R. Waller |
| 1999 | Award: Whitely Award for the best Conservation Biology book - M. A. Burgman and D. L. Lindenmayer |
| 1 July 1999 | The Cooperative Research Centre for Bioproducts opens |
