Reference
- CAROLUS LINNAEUS (b. 1707–d. 1778)The Swedish naturalist and physician Linnaeus brought into general use the scientific system of classifying plants and animals that is now universally used. This is the binomial (two-name) system, in which each living thing is assigned a name consisting of two Latin words. The first word is the name of the genus and the second the species. So important was Linnaeus that he is called the Father of Systematic Botany.
Linnaeus was born Carl von Linné on May 23, 1707, in Rashult, Sweden. (In later years he preferred the latinized form of his name.) Although his father, a curate, wanted the boy to follow in his footsteps, Carl was interested in plants and animals. He was nicknamed “the little botanist” when he was 8 years old. The village physician saw that the boy had unusual gifts and encouraged the father to help care for Carl while he studied medicine at the University of Uppsala beginning in 1728.
There his talents soon won him an appointment as lecturer in botany. Later the Academy of Sciences of Uppsala sent him on a 5,000-mile (8,000-kilometer) botanical survey of Lapland. The scientific results of his journey were published in Flora Lapponica in 1737. His future wife, Sara Moraea, helped provide the funds with which he obtained his doctor's degree in medicine at a university in Holland.
In Holland Linnaeus became medical attendant to an Amsterdam banker who had a large botanical garden. Linnaeus was made director of this garden. In the next few years he published Systema naturae (“System of Nature”) and Genera plantarum (“Species of Plants”). Into later editions of these he introduced his famous system of classification...
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Perspectives
Linnaeus' Philosophia Botanica
Philosophia Botanica (The Science of Botany), by Carl Linnaeus, was originally published in Latin in Stockholm and Amsterdam in 1751. It is a greatly expanded revision of his Fundamenta Botanica (Foundations of Botany) of 1736, summarizing his work on the classification and taxonomy of plantswhile adding substantial new material.The book represents a critical stage in the evolution of binomial nomenclature, with a single word to describe the genus and another for the species. Special importance is attached to accurate description of the parts of plants, and to the correct use of technical terms. There are also explanationsof the effects of soil and climatic conditions on plant growth.The book includes 10 original engravings, with 167 figures showing the shapes of leaves and other parts of the plant, and 6 short memoranda describing Linnaeus' botanical excursions, detailing his ideas for garden and herbarium construction, and outlining what is required of a botanist and hispupils. There are also indexes of technical terms, genera, and subjects.The first full English translation of this classic work since 1775, this beautiful book will be highly attractive to botanists and all those interested in the history of science.
The Great Naturalists
From Classical times to the 19th century, the great quest to discover and define the intoxicating diversity of the natural world attracted a host of intrepid thinkers and explorers. Aristotle and Linnaeus set out to classify nature; Joseph Banks and von Humboldt made perilous journeys to collect and record it. Antony van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria with a homemade microscope and James Hutton revealed the immense age of the Earth. Mary Anning hunted fossils; others insects, birds and plants. Georges Cuvier pondered extinction, and Charles Darwin proclaimed the origin of species.With their radical thinking and commitment to close observation, these pioneers laid foundations for the specialist scientists of today. Here thirty-nine of them are brought vividly to life by an array of experts, with illustrations from the unmatched archive of the Natural History Museum, London.
Classification of Plants
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In the 1700s, Carolus Linnaeus developed a taxonomy to classify all plants and animals. He ordered them into broad categories: kingdom, division, class, order, family, genus, and species. Classification procedures are explained.
Peas in a Pod
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowMapping the human genome is one achievement in a long line of scientific milestones. This intro-level program explores discoveries in the 18th and 19th centuries that gave birth to the science of genetics. Focusing on the work of Carl Linnaeus, Gregor Mendel, and Josef Kölreuter, the program shows how the basic laws of inheritance were established, highlighting the importance of Linnaean taxonomy and Mendel’s revolutionary notion that there is a double set of genetic instructions. Detailed discussions of the four-letter genetic code, the concepts of phenotype and genotype, and Mendel’s life and working methods are featured, along with an overview of the impact of genetic engineering. A viewable/printable instructor’s guide is available online.
Science of Race
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowCarl Linnaeus was the first scientist to sort and rank humans by skin color. For many years, the science of skin color was "frozen in time," since it was an unpopular science. Dr. Nina Jablonski explains how she took up the science of race. WARNING! Viewer Discretion Advised. This video contains nudity and possible offensive content.
Online Resources
- Clare's Poetic BinomialsJohn Clare's confessed preference for the ‘vulgar’ names of flowers and his apparent dismissal of the sexual system as ‘darkness visible’ seems to keeps the taint of Linnaean influence at a distance. His enumeration of flowers in ‘The Wild Flower Nosgay’, however, looks very much like two eighteenth-century descriptive procedures: poetic diction and binomial nomenclature. Dryden's popular translation of Virgil's Georgics modified a classical inheritance of compound epithets into phrases later recognised as poetic diction. This inheritance finds an unexpected consonance in the binomial nomenclature of Linnaeus, who loved the Georgics and referred to them in his work. By comparing poetic diction and binomial nomenclature, this essay investigates the resources of compression or visibility which either procedure might offer to a bookish and keen-sighted poet like Clare. In doing so, it reiterates the case for Clare's immersion in eighteenth-century poetic procedure.
- Human Taxonomies: Carl Linnaeus, Swedish Travel in Asia and the Classification of ManThis article looks at ways in which Swedish travel to Asia informed the classification of man in the work of Carl Linnaeus. In the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae (1758), Linnaeus made substantial changes to his earlier taxonomy of humans. Through two case studies, it is argued that these changes to a great extent were prompted by fresh Swedish eyewitness reports from China and Southeast Asia. The informants for the Homo asiaticus, a variety of Homo sapiens, and a proposed new species of humans, Homo nocturnus (or troglodytes), were all associated with the Swedish East India Company. The botanical contribution by men trained in the Linnaean method travelling on the company's ships has long been acknowledged. In contrast to the systematic collecting of botanical material, Swedish descriptions of Asia's human inhabitants were often inconclusive, reflecting the circumstances of the trade encounter. Linnaeus also relied on older observations made by countrymen, and his human taxonomies also highlight the role of travel literature in eighteenth-century anthropology.
- Systematization, Theology, and the Baroque Wunderkammern: Seeing Nature After LinnaeusThe article focuses on the systematization, theology and the baroque influence of the Wunderkammern, a cultural artifact that physically expressed the society's theological relationship with nature. It analyzes on how theology itself affects the observation and order over the time and the excitement at a strange and foreign nature. The author also argues the cultural definition of rationalization into valuable assets for religion-science.
Linnaean System of Taxonomy
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windown the Linnaean system of taxonomy, the seven main levels include kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Scientists today use DNA to help classify organisms.