Botany as a subject was taught in the college at the intermediate level since 1949, when the Intermediate Science batch was started. It was continued in 1956 for the Pre-University course and finally for the Pre-degree course in 1965, until the latter was delinked from the Collegiate education department in 1997. When BSc Zoology course was started in 1957, Botany was also taught as a subsidiary subject, however the staff members teaching Botany were working under the Department of Zoology. Prof. T.N. Rajendran, Prof.  Thankamani, Prof. N.K. Kurup and Prof. M.D. Salim were some of the earlier Botany teachers.

The Department of Botany started functioning as a separate department with the start of the BSc Botany course in 1968 and the first UG batch passed out in 1971. Prof. P.K. Aboobacker was the first HoD. Prof. N.K. Kurup, Prof. M.D. Salim, Prof. K.S. Thulasi, Prof. V.K. Chandrasekharan and Prof. C.M. Kadija were the teachers of the Botany department at that time.

The department which functioned in the administrative block in the beginning was later shifted to the separate building near the college auditorium, where it is functioning since 1996. Currently the department offers UG course in Botany with Zoology and Chemistry as complementary subjects and also an Open course in Applied Botany for all UG students of the college.

The department has two well-equipped laboratories, department library, classrooms, instrumentation room, a museum with good number of rare plant fossil collections, medicinal tree garden, net house, tissue culture lab, herbaria etc. The Golden Jubilee of the department was celebrated during 2018-19, when the alumni members offered sponsorship for establishing a ‘Golden Jubilee Hall’ for the department.

At present there are 4 faculty members in the department (3 permanent and 1 guest faculty). Out of the four faculties, three are PhD holders and the remaining faculty member is pursuing her PhD. The HoD is also a recognized PhD guide under University of Calicut. All the faculty members are engaged in research activities undertaking various projects funded by different funding agencies at state/national level and also offer their services in plant identification for students and people both inside and outside the college.

In tune with the vision of the department, ‘Continued well-being of the people through excellence in studies, exploration, conservation and sustainable utilization of the plant world’, the department regularly conducts seminars/webinars, workshops, exhibitions, plant exploration tours and visits to various research organizations situated inside and outside the state. As an activity of the ‘Sahyadri Club’ of the department which was formed in 2014, the department is regularly conducting a ‘Daily Quiz’ programme on environment and conservation and it also conducts several other co-curricular and extra-curricular programmes to build up interaction to facilitate activities and to bring unity among the staff and students of the department.

For the last four consecutive years from 2017 – 2020, the department organized a programme named ‘Myristica – a State level Student’s Ecological Fiesta’, planned and materialized by the students of the department, to invoke the green spirits of the youngsters. The programmes included quiz, debates, panel discussions, short film festival, photography contests, art exhibitions etc. This turned out to be the only event from Kerala and one among the two events in South India which was listed in the Global Action Map of the Convention of Biodiversity (CBD) website of the United Nations. The success story of ‘Myristica ‘was also published in the official website of the Department of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Govt. of India.