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THE LINNEAN SPECIAL ISSUE No. 8 

The Linnaean Legacy: 

Three Centuries after his Birth 

Part 1: Unlocking the Past 

Part 2: Botanical Art in the Age of Linnaeus 

Part 3: Today and the Future 

edited by 

Mary J. Morris and Leonie Berwick

2 

THE LINNEAN SPECIAL ISSUE NO 8 

WILEY-BLACKWELL 

9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ 

Special Issue No. 8 of The Linnean 

Newsletter and Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London 

ISSN 0950-1096 

© 2008 The Linnean Society of London 

Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BF 

www.linnean.org 

Charity Reference No. 220509 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or 

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, 

including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval 

system, without permission in writing from the publisher. 

The designations of geographic entities in this book, and the presentation of the 

material, do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the 

publishers, the Linnean Society, the editors or any other participating organisations 

concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or of its authorities, or 

concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

THE LINNAEAN LEGACY: THREE CENTURIES AFTER HIS BIRTH 3 



Contents 

Foreword David Cutler 5 

Part 1 – Unlocking the Past 

Commemoration Speech Carl-Olof Jacobson 9 

The Keen Eye: Linnaeus – The Man Who Saw Everything 

Karin Berglund 13 

Linnaeus: An 18th Century Background 

Marie-Christine Skuncke 19 

What’s more important, a good story or a true story? 

The merging of facts and fiction at Linnaeus’ houses in Uppsala 

Margareta Nisser-Dalman 27 

Making Memorials: Early Celebrations of Linnaeus 

Hanna Östholm 35 

The Origin of and the Philosophy behind Linnaeus’ Sexual System 

Nils Uddenberg 45 

Linnaeus’ sexual system and flowering plant phylogeny 

Birgitta Bremer 51 

Science or poetry? Vernacular plant names and binary nomenclature 

in Sweden around 1900 Jenny Beckman 55 

Apollos of Systematic Botany Pieter Baas 63 

Part 2 – Botanical Art in the Age of Linnaeus 

Linnaeus’ use of illustrations in his naming of plants 

Charlie Jarvis 75 

Georg Dionysius Ehret: A Glimpse into the Golden Age of Botany 

Annika Erikson Browne 85 

Botanical Art in the Age of Linnaeus Brent Elliott 97 

Linnaeus’ Legacy: Botanical Art from the Age of Transoceanic 

Discovery John Edmondson 105 

Part 3 – Today and the Future 

Linné and Taxonomy in Japan: On the 300th Anniversary of his Birth 

His Majesty The Emperor of Japan 115 

England’s Linnaeus Brent Elliott 121

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Contents continued: 

Linnaeus’ Lapland Herbarium in Paris Bengt Jonsell 129 

The conservation of iconic objects and Linnaeus’ books 

and wallpaper Per Cullhed 135 

The Linnean collections at Uppsala University 

Roland Moberg 141 

Linnaeus’ specimens of mammals and birds Anthea Gentry 145 

The Linnaeus Link Project Carol Gökçe 153 

Linnaean Landscapes – Transforming Linnaeus’ Cultural Context 

into a Cultural Heritage Mariette Manktelow 155 

A Tribute to Linnaeus at the Chelsea Flower Show 2007 

Ulf Nordfjell 163 

Naming Nature: The Future of the Linnaean System 

Sandra Knapp 167 

Authors’ e-mail addresses 174




Foreword 

In 2007, the Tercentenary of the birth of Linnaeus was celebrated around the 

world – a fitting tribute to the man and his outstanding contributions to the scientific 

study of natural history, many of which are still especially relevant today. It was to be 

expected that the main concentration of celebrations, scientific meetings and excursions 

was to be found in Sweden and Britain. We are very pleased that, as a Society, under 

the expert guidance of our Tercentenary Coordinator, Jenny Edmonds, we were able 

to share in the organisation of many of these with Swedish colleagues. Those who 

attended the meetings and conferences were most fortunate to hear at first hand 

stimulating and significant papers. 

In this volume we have brought together some of these papers, making them 

available to a wider readership. It must be said that in most cases it was not the original 

intention to publish them, but they were so well received that many of the authors 

graciously responded to my request for their contributions to be written up for this 

publication. Not only did they agree, but also delivered their manuscripts in good time, 

responding to the diligent encouragement of both Leonie Berwick (in London) and 

Annika Windahl Pontén (in Sweden). We are also greatly indebted to Mary Morris and 

Leonie for their hard work and skill in editing and producing this excellent and attractive 

supplement. 

The grouping of the contributions used here is based on subject matter rather 

than their association with particular meetings. This has enabled us to include in 

appropriate places some additional individual papers of particular importance. Among 

these is the paper read in the Rooms of the Linnean Society by His Majesty the Emperor 

of Japan, an Honorary Member of the Linnean Society. We are also glad to have the 

Commemoration Speech given by Carl-Olof Jacobson, President of the Swedish 

Linnaeus Society, given in Uppsala Cathedral. 

This supplement covers both historical and forward looking papers. It is the forward 

look based on such firm foundations that is so encouraging. Our thanks go to all of 

those who helped make the meetings possible, and for those who helped us to know 

more about Linnaeus – the man who saw everything. 

DAVID F. CUTLER 

President, Linnean Society of London

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THE LINNEAN SPECIAL ISSUE NO 8




Part 1: Unlocking the Past

8 



Commemoration Speech 

delivered at the Linnaeus Tercentenary Memorial, 

Uppsala Cathedral, May 23 2007 

Carl-Olof Jacobson FLS 

N. Rudbecksgatan 13, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden 

Sir, Court Physician and Knight of the Realm, our dear Carl Linnaeus: 

As you no doubt are fully aware, your memory, on this day, 300 years after your 

birth, is the object of extensive celebrations across major parts of the world. Et quis 

umquam dígnior fuit, qui ab ómnibus natiónibus concelebrarétur? Tu enim saeculis 

futuris demonstrasti, quantum sciéntia naturalis ad vitam humanam excoléndam 1 

valéret. Hodie intelléximus omnem paene spem nostram in illa scientia naturali 

consístere. Nam sola illa cognitióne innixi genus humanum, immo totam rerum 

naturam, a perículis his tempóribus imminéntibus erúere póssumus. (And who 

could be more deserving of this global attention than you? You have shown all subsequent 

generations of citizens of our planet how important an ordered knowledge of nature 

and all of its contexts is for the continued existence of humankind.) 

Yes, you are indeed worthy of this multifaceted celebration, and so keenly has 

your presence been felt during this year that it seems natural to address you as if you 

were in fact here with us. 

We have every reason to address you today about all the important projects you 

pursued during your work-laden but exciting life. You have rightly been called the 

Flower King, but we must bear in mind that your contributions span a much broader 

field than botany. 

Both during your lifetime and to posterity, you became known above all as the 

great bringer of order to the three kingdoms of nature – the animal kingdom, the plant 

kingdom, and the mineral kingdom. All these years, we have retained your way of 

giving organisms genus names and species names. Your mind was also supremely 

attuned to understanding the contexts you perceived in nature. You were a pioneer in 

grasping the interdependence that characterises the relationships both between organisms 

and between them and their physical surroundings. You were sensitive to the sometimes 

delicate mechanisms in our surroundings, and you realised that we humans have a 

responsibility for the impact we have on nature. It is our hope that your thinking will 

guide more and more people on our planet. We also hope that your curiosity and boldness 

and your youthful frame of mind will inspire our young people today. The world is in 

great need of many, many people who experience the joy of discovery that you felt and 

who share your diligence. 

1 

Cf. Verg. Aen. 6,663.

10 


How many people have you inspired to study nature and the conditions for human 

survival on our planet, from the disciples you sent off to all corners of the world to the 

young people we now hope will emulate your zeal to research everything? 

Nam sine ea curiositate naturali, qua in iuventute tua ardebas, nihil plane in 

rebus naturalibus indagándis efficere póssumus. Laudanda est illa curiósitas 

iuvenílis tua, laudanda etiam illa sapientía paene Salomónea senectútis tuae, 2 

cum discípulos tuos in omnes paene terras orbis terrarum mítteres. (Without youthful 

exuberance, very little is accomplished on our earth. We therefore praise both your 

passion to discover, as a young man, and your wisdom in old age, when you sent off 

your disciples.) 

Your enthusiasm and your stimulating way of teaching also made your lectures 

extremely entertaining to many people outside the Faculty of Medicine. Your idea to 

take your students out into nature to join you in examining organisms and minerals 

spawned a generation of kindred spirits, not least among future clergymen. They, in 

turn, conveyed your views of nature to the Swedes. If it is true, as people say, that we 

Swedes are especially fervent about being outdoors in our forests and fields, then there 

is a good case to be made that you are the source of that mindset. Or as you expressed 

it: 

Aere delectaberis sereno tepidoque, solisque radios vernales excipias. In aere 

rusticano degas, ibique percurras. (from Diaeta Naturalis, 1733) 

We remain impressed by your unfailing efforts to improve the economy of our 

country and your certainty that our industries could clearly benefit from the application 

of scientific findings. Your reports to the Estates of the Realm from your journeys into 

the provinces testify to the fact that your scientific mind and disposition were matched 

by your eye for the practicalities of life. Your travelogues are, moreover, formulated in 

such a lucid and heart-felt manner that you can rightly be seen as a reformer of our 

language, and that, like Strindberg, Goethe, Rousseau, and others, we must count you 

among our foremost authors of the 18th century. Here is how Dag Hammarskjöld 

expressed his admiration for your language: 

With the innovative prowess of a poet, he expanded our capacity to catch and hold 

in the web of language the ephemeral experience of the moment. 

In his speech as director to the official annual meeting of the Swedish Royal 

Academy of Sciences on the occasion of your anniversary 50 years ago, he expressed 

his admiration in the following way: 

An eminent scientist guided the author, but a great poet made the scientist privy to 

the inner sanctum of God. 

Without your vivid descriptions of how our people lived in your day, how we were 

housed, how we ate, worked, and amused ourselves, we would be sorely lacking in 

knowledge of the roots of our present-day ethnography. Your depictions of folk costumes 

and work utensils are clearly marked by your scientific method for describing organisms, 

objects, and facts. 

2 

Referens till Linnés verk Senium Salomoneum.


No speech addressed to you could avoid making some mention of your profession, 

that of a physician. You never forgot – nor do we wish to forget – that your efforts 

were largely directed toward providing human beings with a more secure life. After all, 

your academic knowledge of plants was fundamentally a quest for cures for human 

ailments. In your thoughts, all organisms served a specific purpose in the great 

commonality of nature. Scientists were bent on uncovering and exploiting the utility 

that nature’s grand economic system had in store to make us hale and hardy. We often 

have occasion to recall your studies with immense gratitude. No small number of 

present-day pharmaceuticals can be traced to the suggestions and experiments set up 

by you and your disciples. 

Dénique, Archiáter régie! Eques auráte! Memóriam tuam máxima pietáte, 

admiratióne summa nunc célebrat universus orbis erudítus, immo omnes gentes 

et nationes. Salve, máxime indagátor rerum naturálium! Vivit memoria tua, et 

vivet per saecula, et póstera laude semper recens crescet. 3 (So, dear court physician 

and knight of the realm: please understand that we commemorate your life today with 

such admiration! Please know that we are doing our best to carry on your vision of 

ultimately understanding the world and the mechanisms that govern nature and thereby 

our own conditions. Hail, great scientist! Your memory shall live on!) 

Dixi 

3 

Cf. Horatius, Carmina 3,30,7 f.

12 



The Keen Eye: 

Linnaeus – The Man Who Saw Everything 

Karin Berglund 

Franckegatan 8, SE-431 34 Mölndal, Sweden 

Ladies and gentlemen – firstly, I would like to declare that I am a journalist, not 

a scientist, and a gardener, rather than a botanist. I am going to offer you some very 

small glimpses of Linnaeus the man, and what sort of person he was. 

As a passionate gardener you can look into the beautiful face of a flower and 

seemingly recognise yourself, at least, you can if you are a romantic like me. The 

magic aspect of gardening, for me, is very much about identification, the idea of 

belonging, and it is a pleasing feeling. To see one’s self ‘reflected’ in something else; 

being part of creation, a cosmic revolution if you will, and in a sense the true idea of 

eternal life. 

Linnaeus would have understood such a feeling. To him, every plant – and animal 

– had a specific ‘personality’, of which he has created delightful and living portraits. 

One gets the impression that he too looked a plant in the eye and saw himself. 

Regarding the twin-flower Linnaea borealis (“my plant”, as he called it) he 

wrote: 

A plant in Lapland – short, overlooked, and disregarded with only a brief time in 

bloom. This plant is named for Linnaeus, who is like it. 

I must say I find this rather melodramatic. It is difficult to imagine Linnaeus as a 

small trailing thing on the floor of a dark wood. Indeed, he is more like a formidable 

tree, with many branches. Interestingly, he has also described himself this way. 

A common theme throughout Linnaeus’ texts is that he regards plants as being 

much like animals, without any serious differences between them. Man is also an 

animal; perhaps this is why we can ‘find ourselves’ in a plant. Linnaeus wrote that a 

plant is an animal turned upside down: 

The roots are their mouths 

the leaves, their wings 

and the flower is the naked love of the plant. 

I have written a substantial and heavy book about Linnaeus, entitled Thinking 

About Linnaeus, The Man Who Saw Everything. It is beautifully bound with an 

extent of 400 pages, 40 per cent of which are illustrated. If Linnaeus had been able to 

see all of the pictures incorporated, he might have been envious. During his life he 

dreamed of being able to publish splendidly illustrated books, as was happening in 

places like England and Holland, but Sweden was a poor and remote country with no 

such possibilities and he could only include a small number of engravings, or in many 

cases none at all. 

However, at Hammarby, his summer residence, he was compensated. The famous 

botanical painter Dionysius Ehret and other great artists sent Linnaeus beautiful prints

14 


Figure 1. Wedding portrait of Linnaeus. 

which he innovatively used as wallpaper in his bedroom and studio. He loved his 

magnificent wallpaper and proudly showed it to all of his visiting guests. 

My own studio is not quite as gorgeous but I have two portraits of Linnaeus 

opposite my desk. One is a century-old monochrome reproduction of the famous wedding 

portrait (with the cardinal-red suit) painted by J.H. Scheffel in 1739 (Fig. 1). Printed 

beneath it are the words “Carl Linnaeus, 32 years”. It is a fascinating portrait depicting 

great charisma and personal charm. The waistcoat is slightly unbuttoned, and a shirt of 

soft and flimsy material peeks through the gap. It looks almost as if he has just risen 

from the marriage-bed and without much ado has hastily buttoned up. 

The portrait shows bright brown eyes, with eyebrows like a bird’s wings, a noble 

nose and a big, beautiful mouth. Nonchalantly he leans his elbow against Systema 

Naturae (1735), the great work that had brought him to international recognition, about 

the sexual system of plants. Between his thumb and forefinger we can see his talisman;


a winding branch of his plant, Linnaea borealis. He shines with self-confidence, with 

a sheen of joy, as if he is a man who knows that the future belongs to him. 

The other portrait in my office (Fig. 2) shows a much older Linnaeus. He is in the 

garden watering his hyacinths; he seems to be in another world. An old man who has 

forgotten the names he had given to all areas of creation. This man who had named 

8,000 plants could not remember a single one in his final year. When he died in 1778 the 

study of natural history was no longer the science of the day, and the pinnacle of his 

career had long since passed. 

He had decided on his funeral arrangements well before his death. His instructions 

were a little frightening: 

Figure 2. Portrait of a much older Linnaeus watering his garden plants.

16 


Lay me in the coffin, unshaven, unclothed, dressed only in a sheet, and lock the 

coffin immediately so that no-one can see my misery. 

Bitter, bitter. The warm and intense “summer-Linnaeus” had become an old and 

bitter “winter-Linnaeus” as Professor Gunnar Broberg has since put it. Linnaeus hated 

wintertime. 

In the time between these two portraits he lived his scientific life; he wrote all of 

his epoch-making books, and he is still, after all these years, one of a few Swedes 

whose name is known to scientists all over the world. It was he who introduced the 

idea of a sexual system in the world of plants. It was also Linnaeus who furnished man 

with the scientific name Homo sapiens, and placed us beside the ape in his system. 

And he loved apes. 

Linnaeus hated the towns, with their stench, dirt and diseases. In nature (that is, 

in the countryside), he commented that everything is so green and beautiful that you 

must be made of stone if you are not refreshed by it. When Linnaeus speaks of nature 

he does not mean epic forests or wilderness; his landscape was the cultivated scenery 

and light green woodland. For Linnaeus, nature was everything; it was as if this was 

where you would find God. He also counts the garden in his reference to ‘nature’: 

Why do all gardeners grow old and yet have beautiful skin, if not the plants refresh 

them? The scent of a beautiful flower can rejuvenate. 

This is how Linnaeus regards gardening in his early work, Diaeta Naturalis 

(started in 1733), “the natural diet”. 

Linnaeus was a physician. This is often forgotten for all of his work in botany. 

His professorship, his seat in Uppsala, was in medicine and botany, the two belonging 

together as most medicine was derived from the world of plants. His book Diaeta 

Naturalis, his ‘lifestyle’ book we would say today, is very amusing reading. He sounds 

like a message from the current social authorities. He is astonishingly modern. 

Here are some of the lessons he taught his students: don’t eat so much. Drink 

more water. Exercise, exercise, exercise. Fresh air; no alcohol; get enough sleep. 

Breast-feed the children; never beat them. Eat more fruit. Keep your brain active. 

He warned against eating sugar but recommended a piece of chocolate if you 

felt a little low. Yes, I am sure you have heard that before. 

Linnaeus is sometimes portrayed as a systematist, mad about figures and tables, 

an organiser with military ranks as a model. And yes of course, this is what gave him 

his international position, reputation and fame. But he was so much more. Even now, 

after more than 250 years, you can read his scientific texts with a delighted smile 

because of his unbelievable curiosity, his enthusiasm and astonishment over the richness 

and beauty of life. It is not for nothing that he is counted as one of the great Swedish 

authors of imaginative literature. 

He sees everything – no detail is too small to be examined. For example, even as 

a mature man of 48, he was creeping down, as eager as a child, with lantern in hand to 

spy on the sleeping plants in his garden. 

The story is as follows: Linnaeus had acquired some seeds of a small, exotic 

bird’s foot trefoil and the plant had just started to flower in his botanical garden. He


was keen to show it to his gardener but when he was free in the evening they could not 

find the flower, it was no longer there. The next day it flowered as before, but again, 

when the gardener arrived in the evening it had disappeared. The same thing happened 

on the third day – by now, Linnaeus was almost mad with curiosity. He had to find the 

answer to this mystery. He eventually found the flower hidden behind three leaves. 

The leaves had placed themselves around the flower and formed a protective ‘quilt’. 

The little bird’s foot had fallen asleep and become invisible. 

But Linnaeus would not have been Linnaeus if he had stopped there. He started 

to spy on the plants, curious about their secret nightlife. He studied 51 different specimens 

and found that many looked very different at night than during the day. He saw that 

they slept just like himself, and other animals. Of course he then went on to write a 

very scientific thesis about his experiments, with tables and figures of the sleeping 

plants, dull and correct. 

However, in between you find amusing little pieces, for example: 

When the plants are young they are more addicted to sleep than later in life. 

Linnaeus is often very funny. One of my favourites from among his books is 

Flora Lapponica (1737), his flora of Lapland. It is full of amusing stories. Here is only 

one example: In Flora Lapponica, Linnaeus describes several different fungi, including 

a special mushroom with a strong and pleasant smell. “When the young Lapps find it,” 

he writes, “they pick it and place it just under the stomach, so that the wonderful smell 

will waft over and impress the women.” 

Up until this point everything is scientific and nothing particularly special. However, 

suddenly he comments: 

Oh, ridiculous Venus, you, who in other countries offer your help with coffee and 

chocolate, jams and bon bons…wines and lemonades, precious stones and pearls, 

gold and silver, silk and pomades, dancing and feasts…music and theatre. Here, you 

need only a dry mushroom. 

Linnaeus was a marvellous teacher. He loved his topic and his students, and they 

were devoted to him. Teachers like Linnaeus could save the world, according to Paul 

Alan Cox in his introduction to the new English version of Linnaei Philosophica 

Botanica. With his enthusiasm he inspired his students to love life itself, and that this 

love could eventually move society in a better direction. 

It has been said that Linnaeus among his students is one of the most striking 

cultural features of Swedish history. But of course there is also another side to this. 

Linnaeus was a man with at least two faces; among his students he was also a sovereign 

amidst his slaves. To be a ‘Linnaean’ was to be a member of a sect, with Linnaeus as 

the head priest. He preached his orthodox botany and expected his students to take his 

theories to the wider world as apostles, in the literal meaning of the word. 

He loved his botanical garden; his academic garden – it was the apple of his eye. 

It was his classroom, his botanical dictionary and his joy. From the studio in his home 

he could look out over the garden. Early in the morning he would take his first tour 

around the plants in his nightcap and nightgown. 

And like all gardeners throughout history he wanted people to see his ‘paradise’ 

when it flourished. “Come and see me,” he wrote repeatedly to his dear friend Abraham

18 


Bäck, who, like Linnaeus, was a personal physician at court. 

I would like to finish with one of his most charming letters of invitation to Bäck: 

When my brother has left for Drottningholm [residence of the Queen], so you must 

come here to see the garden. I think it deserves to be seen for at least a couple of 

days. Whilst my brother is exploring the big world of Kings, then you must come to 

a little prince in the country of Flora. Let us retire in our nightgowns and close the 

front door, and talk about wonderful things.


Linnaeus: 

An 18th Century Background 

Marie-Christine Skuncke 

Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Thunbergsvägen 2, 

SE-752 38 Uppsala, Sweden 

On 25 September 1759, the Swedish Royal Family visited the University of 

Uppsala: King Adolf Fredrik, Queen Lovisa Ulrika – the sister of Frederick the Great 

– Crown Prince Gustaf, a thirteen-year-old boy, and the little princess Sofia Albertina. 

They were received by the Vice-Chancellor who, that half-year, was none other than 

Professor Linnaeus. Today Linnaeus is remembered primarily as a scientist, but he 

was also a brilliant speaker. He delivered a grand speech to the royal visitors about the 

sciences, “vettenskaperna”. The text was printed in large format (Fig. 1), with an 

ambitious layout reminiscent of poetry. 

Linnaeus made two contentions in his speech: Sciences are useful and necessary 

in human society; enlightened rulers protect the sciences. Of course, this belonged to 

his role as Vice-Chancellor. If the present Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University 

received representatives from the state authorities, he would be saying pretty much 

the same thing: ‘Universities do useful work – we need economic support’. Nevertheless, 

this is an 18th century text which can tell us a good deal about Linnaeus and his time. 

Taking the speech as a starting-point, I shall attempt a brief introduction to Linnaeus’ 

Swedish 18th century background. 

A belief in the sciences 

Linnaeus’ speech is a vindication of the sciences. A central image is that of light 

and darkness; sciences mean light, while lack of sciences means darkness: 

SCIENCES are a light, which is as little noticed by those that dwell in it, as it gleams 

splendidly for those that wander in darkness. 

(In Swedish: VETTENSKAPER äro ett ljus, som så litet märkes af dem däruti vistas, 

som det härligen glimmar för dem, som vandra i mörkret). 

Linnaeus goes on to enumerate, in a series of parallel clauses, the benefits of the 

different sciences – Languages, Economics, History, Politics, Morals, Law, etc., 14 

disciplines in all – and the negative consequences where sciences are absent. The 

parallel clauses are emphasised by the typographical layout. 

Linnaeus’ belief in the sciences was typical of the prevailing ideology in mid-18th 

century Sweden. A short background may be useful to readers not familiar with Swedish 

history. After the death of Charles XII, Sweden had lost its status as a great European 

power, yet this was a kingdom with an original political system. During the period 

known as the Age of Liberty (1720–1772), political power was concentrated in 

Parliament, the Diet or “Riksdag”, whereas the king’s power was strictly limited. Two 

parties, the Hats and the Caps, competed within the Riksdag, and in practice power 

rested with the ruling party. For several decades, from the late 1730s to the mid-1760s,

20 


Figure 1. Two pages from Linnaeus’ speech to the Royal Family 1759: 

(a) the title-page above and (b) first page (right). The original format is large folio.

THE LINNAEAN LEGACY: THREE CENTURIES AFTER HIS BIRTH 21

22 


the ruling party was that of the Hats – Linnaeus’ party – which can be described as an 

alliance between big entrepreneurs and high-ranking civil servants. 

For the Hat leaders, Sweden’s future lay in developing science and technology in 

order to boost the country’s economy, especially in manufacturing. The Hats promoted 

scientific research and launched new institutions. The Royal Academy of Sciences 

was created in Stockholm in 1739 just after the Hats had come to power, with the 

young Linnaeus as one of its founders. At the University of Uppsala, a chair of economics 

(œconomia publica) was established in 1741 with Anders Berch as its first holder. A 

national office for statistics, the first in Europe, was created in 1749: Tabellverket, the 

Office of Tables. As the Swedish historian of ideas Karin Johannisson has shown, the 

promoters of that office believed in the blessings of quantitative methods, “political 

arithmetic”. 

The mid-18th century was a period of strong institutional support for the sciences 

in Sweden, and it became a golden age for the natural sciences. Besides Linnaeus, we 

find names like Celsius, the well-known physicist, the astronomer Wargentin, the 

mineralogist Wallerius and others. As far as natural sciences are concerned, Sweden 

was far from peripheral; it belonged to the European forefront. In the Hats’ programme, 

there was a strong economic component: the mercantilist principle to limit importation 

as much as possible in order to create a positive balance of trade. Hence a wish to 

substitute domestic products for expensive imports from abroad (this point has been 

stressed by Lisbet Koerner (Rausing) in her dissertation Linnaeus: Nature and Nation). 

The travels of Linnaeus and his pupils were aimed at practical utility, at charting 

the natural resources of the Swedish realm – useful plants, animals and minerals. This 

is an important background to the Linnaean collections. Linnaeus’ own travels in the 

Swedish provinces were commissioned in several cases by the Swedish authorities. 

When he set off on his journey to the island of Öland, he had an instruction from the 

Swedish Board of Manufacturers ordering him to look for, first, plants that could be 

used for dying (colours were needed for the new textile industry), second, types of 

clay that might be used to produce porcelain (and thus avoid the expensive import of 

porcelain from China), and third, medicinal plants. In the travels of Linnaeus’ pupils 

and friends, we find the same utilitarian perspective; for instance the idea that foreign 

plants could be acclimatised in Sweden. Linnaeus had hopes of growing tea in Uppsala 

(again an expensive import). His friend Captain Ekeberg succeeded in bringing tea 

plants alive from China, but alas they did not survive the Uppsala climate. There was 

also an ambition to master production technologies, the secret of Chinese porcelain 

production for example. 

In the Swedish Age of Liberty, one could say there was an alliance between 

science and business. Close ties developed between the Swedish Academy of Sciences 

and Linnaeus, on the one hand, and on the other the Swedish East India Company, with 

its director Magnus Lagerström a key player. The rule was adopted that chaplains on 

board the company’s ships must have studied natural sciences, preferably with Linnaeus 

himself. This was the case with Pehr Osbeck and Olof Torén, gifted pupils of Linnaeus, 

who saw to it that they travelled to China with the Swedish East India Company. 

These chaplains on board the ships were botanists – both ministers of Christ and 

apostles of Linnaeus. Thus there was also an alliance between science and the Church.


It is typical of the Swedish 18th century that there existed, as a rule, no opposition 

between science and the official, Lutheran religion. On the contrary, the two went 

hand in hand. Swedish parish priests became involved in practical enlightenment work, 

for example encouraging peasants to inoculate their children against smallpox. For 

Linnaeus, the harmonious order that he uncovered in Creation proved the goodness of 

the Creator – the doctrine known as physico-theology. We find this in his speech from 

1759, when he enumerates the benefits of the different sciences. Through astronomy, 

he says, we learn “to perceive God’s infinite power” (“at skönja Guds oändeliga mackt”), 

and through natural science “to see God’s magnificent order” (“at se Guds dråpeliga 

inrättning”). Linnaeus was not always an orthodox Christian in private, yet he was a 

deeply religious person, as the historian of science Tore Frängsmyr has recently stressed. 

In the 10th edition of the Systema Naturae, published in the same period as his royal 

speech (1758–59), the first pages are full of religious quotations praising the glory of 

the Lord. In one case, the words “Magnus est DEUS noster”, “Great is our God”, 

stand alone on the left-hand page, while the right-hand page gives details about the 10 

editions of the Systema Naturae, as publicity for the work. 

To sum up, one might say that the prevailing ideology among the Swedish elite in 

the mid-18th century was an optimistic belief in scientific progress, but at the same 

time a continued adherence to the Christian religion. If there was such a thing as a 

Swedish Enlightenment – this is a much debated point among Swedish 18th century 

scholars – it was a Christian, Protestant Enlightenment, very different from the anti- 

Christian Enlightenment of the French philosophers. 

Linnaeus and languages 

When Linnaeus addressed the Royal Family at Uppsala in 1759, the language 

situation was tricky. The king and queen were both German. For Queen Lovisa Ulrika, 

the most natural language would have been French, the international language of the 

aristocratic elite in Europe – but Linnaeus did not speak French. At the University of 

Uppsala, the normal language would have been Latin – but the Royal Family did not 

understand Latin. So Swedish was chosen as a compromise. Swedish, incidentally, 

was the first language of the crown prince, the future Gustaf III. 

In his choice of languages, Latin versus Swedish, Linnaeus consciously targeted 

different audiences. Scientific works aimed at an international audience, and also at a 

Swedish academic audience, were written in Latin, or more accurately Neo-Latin. 

This was the case, for example, with the Systema Naturae. The list of editions just 

mentioned includes two editions published in Leiden, two in Halle, one in Leipzig and 

one in Paris, besides editions produced in Stockholm from Lars Salvius’ publishing 

house. Latin was also the language that Linnaeus used in his correspondence with 

foreign scholars. Around half of the letters in the Linnaean Correspondence are written 

in Latin. Academic dissertations at Uppsala were normally also written in Latin. 

Neo-Latin in the 18th century was not a dead and dusty language, but a living, 

flexible tool for scientific communication, as the studies of Latinists such as Hans 

Helander and Krister Östlund have shown. Linnaeus’ Latin has been analysed in an 

article by Ann-Mari Jönsson, who works on the Linnaean Correspondence. The Latin 

in his letters is not always grammatically correct, especially when he writes in a hurry.

24 


Yet his use of Latin is bold and creative – just think of the whole botanical nomenclature 

that he created! Ann-Mari Jönsson claims that Linnaeus owed his whole botanical 

career to the Latin language. There is something in this; if the Systema Naturae had 

been published in Swedish, it would not have reached beyond the borders of the Swedish 

realm. 

On the other hand, works by Linnaeus aimed at a Swedish, not specifically 

academic, audience were written in Swedish. The Royal Academy of Sciences, of 

which Linnaeus was a founding member, systematically used Swedish in its publications 

in order to spread useful knowledge among the local elite in the Swedish kingdom. 

Linnaeus was a frequent contributor. For the same reason – spreading useful knowledge 

– the travel accounts of Linnaeus and his pupils were published in Swedish. As far as 

Linnaeus is concerned, this was not only useful knowledge but also highly enjoyable 

reading. He was a master of the Swedish language but he only had scant knowledge of 

other modern languages, for example, French, which in the 18th century was competing 

with Latin as an international scientific language. 

Scientific careers 

In Linnaeus’ speech to the Royal Family, one of his contentions was that 

enlightened rulers protect the sciences. Linnaeus insists on the necessary material 

conditions if sciences are to flourish. The authorities should ensure that academic 

teachers get decent salaries, and that promising scholars have career prospects; 

promotion at universities should depend on scholarly qualifications, not on the number 

of years one has been employed. Linnaeus himself hardly set a good example in this 

respect. He secured for his own son the chair of botany and medicine at Uppsala, thus 

blocking the way to promotion for ambitious young scholars. As it happened, the younger 

Linnaeus died early, only five years after his father, but that could not be foreseen. 

In a recent book on natural history and travel, the young historians Kenneth 

Nyberg and Hanna Hodacs explore the theme of scientific careers in 18th century 

Sweden. Kenneth Nyberg questions the image of Linnaeus’ “apostles” sacrificing 

themselves for the sake of science and Linnaeus – an image largely created by Linnaeus 

himself. The travelling pupils, Nyberg claims, were young men at the beginning of their 

careers, and their travels to foreign lands were a stage in building a career. Some died 

on the journey, but others did succeed. 

Kenneth Nyberg’s results tally with my own current research on Carl Peter 

Thunberg, who visited the Cape, Java, Japan and Ceylon, and brought back to Europe 

huge collections of plants, animals, minerals, and also books, coins, maps and 

ethnographical objects. Thunberg obviously used his collections in order to promote his 

own career. He gave items to the influential Sir Joseph Banks in London, whom he 

visited on his way back from Japan. He donated his collection of precious Japanese 

coins to the Swedish king, Gustaf III (whom we have met in the introduction as a 

thirteen-year-old boy listening to Linnaeus’ speech). He managed to succeed Linnaeus 

the younger as professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala in 1784, the same year 

that the Linnean collections were shipped to London. Thunberg’s collections were 

there to fill the gap – he made a donation to the university in 1785. Thunberg held 

Linnaeus’ chair at Uppsala for forty-four years, until his death in 1828.


Was Linnaeus a racist? 

In Linnaeus’ 1759 speech, we read the following lines: 

A Human Being, without education, left to himself, is more like a Guenon Monkey 

than the image of God. 

Wild Peoples, Barbarians and Hottentots, are distinct from us only through Sciences; 

just as a thorny, sour crab is distinct from a tasty reinette [a sort of apple] only 

through culture. 

(In Swedish: ‘En Menniska, utan upfostran, lämnad sig sielf, liknar mer en Markatta 

än Guds beläte. 

Ville Folkslager, Barbarer och Hottentotter, skilljas ifrån oss endast med Vettenskaper; 

liksom en taggig Sur-appel skilljes ifrån en smakelig Renette, endast genom cultur’). 

Here the botanist is speaking: the sour, wild apple versus the tasty, cultivated 

apple. Cultivation, or culture, is an important image in the speech, besides the image of 

light and dark. What distinguishes modern Europeans from primitive peoples is education 

and culture. 

In our day, Linnaeus and his pupils have come under attack from the post-colonial 

scholar Mary Louise Pratt in her book Imperial Eyes (1992) where she describes 

them as white, male, bourgeois, imperialist, racist Europeans. Was Linnaeus an imperialist 

and a racist? The question should be answered in a balanced way. With regard to the 

charge of imperialism, we should remember that Sweden, in the Age of Liberty, was a 

country without overseas colonies. The Swedish voyages to East India were a 

mercantile, not an imperial, project. Regarding the charge of racism, it is important to 

read Linnaeus’ own texts. In the passage from the 1759 speech which I quoted above, 

Linnaeus asserts that civilised Europeans are superior to primitive peoples, and that 

their superiority resides in “culture”. The decisive factor is “culture”, not race. In this 

text, Linnaeus can be described as Eurocentric but not racist. 

The Systema Naturae contains an anthropological discussion in Latin, which is 

not easy to interpret. I base my thoughts on the 10th edition from 1758–59, together 

with the comments of the historian of ideas Gunnar Broberg. Linnaeus does not use 

the word “race” – it was introduced by his French opponent Buffon. Instead, he 

distinguishes between five “varieties” of the species “Homo sapiens”: the American, 

the European, the Asian, the African and the monstrous (“Monstrosus”). Linnaeus 

links geographical location – the four then-known continents – with physical and cultural 

characteristics. In the 10th edition, Linnaeus places the American before the European. 

On the other hand, the African comes lowest in the hierarchy of continents; he is 

described as “sly, lazy, careless” (“Vafer, segnis, negligens”). The Hottentots, whom 

Linnaeus mentioned in his speech to the Royal Family, are included in the category 

“monstrous”, as they were supposed to have only one testicle. Classifications of this 

type could later be used for racist purposes, but that belongs to the 19th, not the 18th 

century. Linnaeus cannot be held responsible for the crimes of subsequent generations. 

To conclude: Linnaeus was a Swede of the 18th century – the son of a country 

vicar, reconciling science and religion, intent on practical, economic utility; a master of 

the Swedish language; and, not least, a man who, with the help of the Neo-Latin 

language, placed Sweden on the international scientific map.

26 


Acknowledgements 

I wish to express my gratitude to the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study 

(SCAS) in Uppsala, where I wrote this paper during a stay as a fellow. My warm 

thanks are also due to the Editor of the Linnaean Correspondence, Eva Nyström at 

Uppsala, for valuable information. 

REFERENCES 

Broberg, Gunnar, 1975. Homo sapiens L. Studier i Carl von Linnés naturuppfattning och 

människolära. Stockholm. 

Frängsmyr, Tore, 1976. Ostindiska kompaniet. Höganäs. 

Frängsmyr, Tore (ed.), 1989. Science in Sweden: The Royal Academy of Sciences 1739–1989. 

Canton, Mass. 

Frängsmyr, Tore, 2007. Carl Linnaeus – A Man of Paradoxes, Commemorative Lecture on 

Linnaeus’ birthday, 23 May, 2007. Uppsala. 

Helander, Hans, 2004. Neo-Latin Literature in Sweden in the period 1620–1720: Stylistics, 

vocabulary and characteristic ideas. Uppsala. 

Hodacs, Hanna & Nyberg, Kenneth, 2007. Naturalhistoria på resande fot. Om att forska, 

undervisa och göra karriär i 1700-talets Sverige. Lund. 

Ihalainen, Pasi, 2005. Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing perceptions of national identity 

in the rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish public churches, 1685–1772. Leiden & 

Boston. 

Johannisson, Karin, 1988. Det mätbara samhället: Statistik och samhällsdröm i 1700-talets 

Europa. Stockholm. 

Jönsson, Ann-Mari, ‘Linnaeus’s “Svartbäckslatin” as an International Language of Science’, 

Svenska Linnésällskapets årsskrift 2000-2001, pp. 48–76. 

Koerner [Rausing], Lisbet, 1999. Linnaeus: Nature and nation. Cambridge, Mass. 

Lindroth, Sten, 1978. Svensk lärdomshistoria: Frihetstiden. Stockholm. 

Linnæus, Carolus, 1758. Systema naturæ Per Regna tria naturæ [...], Edition Decima, Reformata, 

2 vols 1758–59, I. Holmiæ. 

Linnæus, Carl, Tal, vid Deras Kongl. Majesteters Höga Närvaro [...] den 25 Septemb. 1759 

(Uppsala s.a.). 

Linné, Carl von, Öländska Resa[n] förrättad 1741, ed. Bertil Molde (Stockholm 1957). 

Müller-Wille, Staffan, 2005. ‘Walnuts at Hudson Bay, Coral Reefs in Gotland: the Colonialism of 

Linnaean Botany’, in Colonial Botany, eds. Londa Schiebinger & Claudia Swan, Philadelphia. 

Nordenstam, Bertil, 1993. ‘Carl Peter Thunberg – liv och resor’, in Carl Peter Thunberg. Linnean, 

resenär, naturforskare 1743–1828, ed. Bertil Nordenstam. Stockholm. 

Östlund, Krister, 2000. Johan Ihre on the Origins and History of Runes: Three Latin Dissertations 

from the mid 18 th Century, diss. Uppsala. 

Pratt, Mary Louise, 1992. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London & New 

York. 

Skuncke, Marie-Christine, 2008. ‘Carl Peter Thunbergs japanska resa i 1770– och 1780–talens 

medier’, in Sjuttonhundratal 2008 (yearbook of the Swedish Society for 18 th century studies), 

pp. 44–62. 

Sloan, Philip, 1995. ‘The gaze of natural history’, in Inventing human science: eighteenthcentury 

domains, eds. Christopher Fox, Roy Porter & Robert Wokler. Berkeley, Los Angeles 

& London.


What’s more important, a good story or a true 

story? The merging of facts and fiction at 

Linnaeus’ houses in Uppsala 

Margareta Nisser-Dalman 

Head Curator, Uppsala University Art Collections 

Box 256, SE-751 05 Uppsala, Sweden 

Museums know it, historic houses know it, churches know it and hotels know it. 

They know the importance of a good story to capture the imagination of the visitor. 

The tourist industry has become more and more dependent on narratives and storytelling. 

Houses and artefacts are not sufficient in themselves, they must be able to tell a story. 

If the story is bland, it can be spiced up. If the story isn’t there at all, it can be created. 

Uppsala University Art Collections are the trustees of around 500 objects that 

are in some way connected to Linnaeus and his family. These objects are kept at 

Hammarby, Linnaeus’ country house outside Uppsala (Fig. 1), and they are thus part 

of a museum context as well as a tourist context. Some of these objects have the good 

fortune to have a provenance supported by inventories, passages in Linnaeus’ rich 

correspondence or in his scientific work. Other objects are not so fortunate. But let us 

start with the lucky ones. 

Figure 1. The Hammarby estate outside Uppsala was purchased by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. 

Engraving by F. Akrell. Uppsala University Art Collections/Hammarby.

28 


Figure 2. Milk pitchers from the 

two tea sets decorated with 

Linnaea borealis. The tea sets 

were ordered on Linnaeus’ 

account in Canton by Pehr 

Osbeck. © Uppsala University Art 

Collections/Hammarby. 

For instance, take the two similar, but not identical, tea sets decorated with Linnaea 

borealis, commissioned by Linnaeus in China with the assistance of his disciple Pehr 

Osbeck who travelled with the Swedish East India Company to Canton (Fig. 2). The 

story of how the first commissioned tea set “was killed” – Osbeck’s own words in a 

letter to Linnaeus – is well known and has captured the imagination of people for more 

than one reason. By saying that the tea set “was killed” it becomes almost human and 

subject to our feelings. Secondly, it was not “killed” on the long adventurous sea journey 

from Canton to Sweden but when travelling on land the relatively short trip from the 

harbour in Gothenburg to Uppsala – and, thirdly, it carries the symbol Linnaeus chose 

for himself – Linnaea borealis. All of this gives the tea set a special position among 

the many objects left by Linnaeus. The shipment of the second tea set has its own 

narrative. It is described in a letter prior to its commission: Osbeck tells Linnaeus that 

the advantage of a second commission is that the Linnaea borealis can be more 

accurately outlined and the colours improved upon. When comparing the two tea sets 

it is obvious that Osbeck was correct in that respect. The flower of the second shipment 

is more rose coloured than red and more sensitively drawn. 

Another object with a splendid 

provenance is the oil painting of the 

monkey Grinn (Fig. 3) who is referred 

to by Linnaeus himself in a publication 

from the Royal Academy of Sciences. 

According to this, Grinn was a gift 

from the Swedish Queen Lovisa 

Ulrika in 1768. Furthermore, the text 

declares that the painting of Grinn was 

commissioned by the King Adolf 

Fredrik, and presented to Linnaeus. 

This little painting is thus a gem in 

more than one way. Not only is it a 

sweet, heart wrenching picture of an 

animal with a name and a charming 

punky sort of hairdo, it also has royal 

Figure 3. This portrait of Grinn, a cotton-top tamarin, 

was painted by Gustaf Hassellius (1727–1775). 

© Uppsala University Art Collections/Hammarby.


connections and, furthermore, it was kept at the Botanical Garden, today the Linnaeus 

Garden, in Uppsala. The cotton-top tamarin is not the only animal depicted at Hammarby. 

Linnaeus’ interest in animals is well documented. A person who surrounds himself with 

animals must have a good heart and this adds 

to the visitors’ positive view of Linnaeus. The 

racoon Sjupp (Fig. 4) was a gift from King 

Adolf Fredrik and the stories surrounding this 

animal are many (and not always to Sjupp’s 

advantage). Another engaging fact is that the 

raccoon was kept at the Linnaeus garden. 

In the following years live animals of various 

species, including monkeys, were kept at the 

garden. An old monkey’s cage was found in 

the attic of the Orangery building in the 

garden. The cages can also be spotted on 

high poles in old engravings of the garden. It 

is tantalising to visualise Linnaeus’ monkeys 

sitting up there, chained to poles, high above 

the ground. 

Grinn and Sjupp were really kept by 

Linnaeus as pets and objects of study. Two 

Figure 4. A tinted drawing of a Raccoon, 

perhaps Sjupp. © Uppsala University Art 

Collections/ Hammerby. 

other paintings of monkeys, now at Hammarby, are also part of the narrative surrounding 

Linnaeus and his unusual household animals (e.g. Fig. 5). They too are supposed to 

have been part of the menagerie kept at the Botanical garden but this is not in fact true. 

That narrative has been part of the Linnaeus tales since the beginning of the 20th 

century and it has moved from guide to guide and from book to book, without being 

questioned. Once something is set in print it also has a tendency to become tantamount 

to the truth. The truth this time however, is that the two paintings of live monkeys were 

used as models for the engravings included in a scientific work on animals that Linnaeus 

compiled for King Adolf Fredrik in 1754. This does not mean that the paintings are 

without interest, at least not for an art historian. From a Swedish point of view the 

artists involved in creating the illustrations for the book are highly interesting: Jean Eric 

Rehn and Olof von Dahlin. The first was a highly versatile artist involved in many highranking 

architectural and artistic projects in Sweden in the 18th century and the other 

a writer, publicist and historiographer. Both of them were very successful in their 

different fields but not famous for portraying monkeys! But of course for the average 

visitor to Hammarby the thought of the two monkeys roaming around in the garden is 

more pleasing than the fact that they were merely models for a scientific work on 

animals. 

Linnaeus’ doctoral (Fig. 6) hat is included in the inventory drawn up after the 

acquisition of Hammarby by the state in 1879. But in what sense is it Linnaeus’ doctoral 

hat? Linnaeus passed his degree of Doctor of Medicine in Harderwyk in Holland. Did 

he receive the hat on that occasion? Probably not. The green colour of the hat has 

connections to the Faculty of Medicine in Uppsala and the fact that the hat is clad with 

silk indicates that it has been used on ceremonial or formal occasions. One must therefore

30 


Figure 5. White-faced capuchin. An engraving based on this picture was included in the 

work Museum S.R.M. Adolphi Friderici, written by Carl Linnaeus and published in 1754. 

© Uppsala University Art Collections/ Hammerby. 

draw the conclusion that Linnaeus used the hat in his role as conferrer at the conferment 

of doctoral degrees at Uppsala University. He acted in this role on no less than eight 

occasions. It is therefore not wrong to say that the hat is Linnaeus’ doctoral hat but one 

Figure 6. Linnaeus doctoral hat, a tricorn, clad with green silk. 

© Uppsala University Art Collections/ Hammerby.


Figure 7. Photo of Linnaeus’ workroom at 

Hammarby in the 1870s by the Uppsala 

photographer Emma Schenson. The walls 

are adorned with Plumier’s uncoloured 

graphic prints. © Uppsala University 

Library. 

should add that he used it as conferrer 

rather than when being awarded his 

degree. 

The best preserved rooms at 

Hammarby are Linnaeus’ work 

chamber (Fig. 7) and his bed chamber 

on the second floor. These two rooms 

were left more or less untouched after 

his death and were shown to visitors 

by his widow. Linnaeus’ wife, Sara 

Elisabeth, used the house as a 

permanent residence after her 

husband’s death since the Botanical 

house in Uppsala belonged to the 

university. The famous botanical plates that adorn the work chamber and bed chamber 

are actually fortunate to still be where they are. After Linnaeus’ death his son wished 

to remove the engravings and replace them with 

something more up to date. His mother refused to 

comply and that is probably why we can still enjoy 

them today. Already in Linnaeus’ lifetime visitors 

warned him that the valuable hand coloured 

engravings might come to harm as they were glued 

straight on to the bare timber walls. Linnaeus was 

well aware of the fact that the engravings were 

subject to various risks but he stated that they were 

to remain where they were for him to enjoy for as 

long as he lived. 

The hand coloured engravings used as 

wallpaper in Linnaeus’ bed chamber are often 

referred to in books as “Ehret’s plates”, after the 

German botanical illustrator Georg Dionysius Ehret. 

The Swedish botanist Karin Martinsson has studied 

the engravings closely and determined that they are, 

in fact, taken from a number of botanical works 

Figure 8. Red cupboard in Linnaeus’ work chamber from 

the late 18th century. © Uppsala University Art 

Collections/ Hammerby.

32 


where Ehret is only one of several artists. Among them are engravings taken from 

Christoph Jacob Trew’s Plantae Selectae and Philip Miller’s Figures of the most 

beautiful, useful and uncommon plants described in the Gardener’s Dictionary 

1760 with Ehret as illustrator alongside John Miller. There are also a few plates by Carl 

Clerck from his work on butterflies, Icones Insectorum Rariorum. Naming the plates 

“Ehret’s plates” is an unjust simplification of their more complex and interesting origins. 

The engravings in the work chamber are all by the French monk and botanist 

Charles Plumier. Plumier made the drawings for the plates on a journey to the West 

Indies. The drawings were acquired by Linnaeus’ friend Johannes Burman who wanted 

Linnaeus to see the engravings before they were published to make sure the 

designations given to the species were correct. 

In an article in the Uppsala University Tercentenary book we have deliberately 

left out a piece of furniture that most visitors adore and which is repeatedly reproduced 

in books and magazines. It is the eye-catching red cupboard in Linnaeus’ work chamber 

filled with pressed plants arranged according to Linnaeus’ sexual system (Fig. 8). 

There is only one slight problem: the cupboard wasn’t there in Linnaeus’ lifetime. It 

has been examined by experts and although the wood is old it is thought to be from the 

very end of the 18th century. Is this important? I think it is. All the objects gathered at 

Hammarby are in the custody of the University Art Collections and they are thus part 

of research material belonging to the university. As in any other discipline of research 

we must have the same demand for accuracy and truth when presenting the property 

left by the Linnaeus family to the public. 

Let us return to the monkey Grinn in his original setting on the wall covered with 

multicoloured engravings in Linnaeus’ bed chamber. The spiky crown of white fur on 

the monkey’s head – “the cotton top” of the cotton-top tamarin – is an important 

weapon in the struggle to catch the attention and imagination of the visitor today. 

Professor Tore Frängsmyr, former Hans Rausing Professor of History of Science 

wrote recently in one of the morning papers that “every jubilee has its own Linnaeus” 

meaning that every new generation of writers on Linnaeus interpret the man and the 

scientist in different ways. The same can be said for tourists and visitors to Hammarby 

and the Botanical house. Visitors pick and choose among the many objects left by 

Linnaeus and his family and the objects chosen differ from generation to generation. 

The monkey Grinn might not be considered interesting in a hundred years time or even 

twenty years time. 

Let us move on to the Botanical house in the Linnaeus garden (Fig. 9). It was the 

home of the Professor of Medicine and Botany in Uppsala and it was originally built by 

Olaus Rudbeckius in 1693. It was rebuilt for Linnaeus in the 1740s according to plans 

drawn up by the famous Swedish architect Carl Hårleman. Or, at least, that is what it 

says in many, many books on the subject. There are in fact no written records whatsoever 

to support the claim that Hårleman was the architect. The house is clearly in the 

Hårleman tradition, the Botanical Garden was given a new layout according to plans 

by Hårleman and he was the architect behind several other building projects in Uppsala 

at the time. But it is also a fact that the architecture represented by Hårleman had a 

radical impact on all architecture of the time and the man himself worked in favour of 

architectural standardisation of official buildings. Linnaeus speaks in a letter of a plan


Figure 9. The Botanical house, today the Linnaeus Museum, was Carl Linnaeus’ official 

residence from 1743. He lived here with his family until his death in 1778. 

© Uppsala University Library. 

for the Botanical house drawn up by Hårleman’s assistant Johan Christoffer Kjörner. 

That plan is lost and as long as no new records turn up, it would be safer to say that the 

Botanical house was rebuilt by an anonymous architect working in Hårleman’s tradition. 

Hårleman is one of the most famous and best loved architects in Swedish history and 

he is associated with a romanticised century and with kings and queens promoting 

science, culture, refinement and education. It certainly isn’t difficult to understand why 

people treasuring the memory of Carl Linnaeus wish to attach the name of Hårleman 

to the Botanical house. It makes it more important and its occupant accordingly so. 

Finally, I think something must be said about the new wallpaper in the Botanical 

house (Fig. 10). The house was radically renovated and rebuilt in the 1930s after a 

thorough investigation into its history by antiquarians and art historians. Up to eight 

layers of paint were removed from the interior walls, secondary interior walls were 

removed, new fireplaces were installed et cetera, et cetera. This investigation revealed 

a host of unknown facts about the house in Linnaeus’ days but it could, of course, 

never tell the whole story of what the house had looked like, how it was decorated or 

how it was furnished. There is, for example, no knowledge of what the interior walls 

actually looked like. Were they hung with wallpaper or with painted linen cloth nailed to 

wooden frames? Or were the walls merely plastered and painted? If there was 

wallpaper, was it monochrome, multicoloured or patterned? We simply don’t know.

34 


Figure 10. A sample of the Linnaeus Museum’s 

newly produced wallpapers, crafted as in 

Linnaeus’ days and inserted into the 18th 

century setting for the 300th anniversary of the 

birth of the scientist. © The Linnaeus Museum, 

Teddy Thörnlund. 

Today the walls in the Botanical house are covered in new brightly coloured, patterned, 

hand painted and block printed wallpapers. The models have no connection with the 

Botanical house in Linnaeus’ days. Instead, they are taken from Drottningholm Palace 

in Stockholm, the theatre at Drottningholm, the archives of the Stockholm City Museum, 

from Hammarby and from a neighbouring house in Uppsala from around 1810. Is this 

a problem? As long as guidebooks and guides are explicit and point out the fact that the 

various wallpapers are in fact reconstructions and representative of a time span of 

about 50 years during and after Linnaeus’ life time, I think it is O.K. It is however not 

O.K to be vague on this point in an attempt to present a tale of an untouched 18th 

century house inhabited by one of our country’s most illustrious scientists. As long as 

no facts are withheld, this new wallpaper can actually provide a piece of important 

information about the Botanical house, Hammarby and historic houses in general: the 

fact that time can’t be halted, changes will inevitably occur over the years and will 

continue to do so. With this in mind the visitor can enjoy the houses occupied by Linnaeus 

and his family and be smitten by their robust charm, personal mix of styles and belongings 

acquired over a long period of time. A good story certainly makes life easier for the 

guides at Hammarby, but I’m sure Linnaeus would have opted for a true story if forced 

to choose.


Making Memorials: 

Early Celebrations of Linnaeus 

Hanna Östholm 

Department of History of Science and Ideas: Office for the History of Science, 

Avd. för vetenskapshistoria, Box 629, SE-751 26 Uppsala, Sweden 

In 1807 the centenary of the birth of Linnaeus was celebrated. Previously, the 

marking of anniversaries had been a purely sacred phenomenon, due to the ecclesiastical 

tradition of jubilees. The anniversaries of Uppsala University’s letter of privilege in 

1477 had never been commemorated. Plans for a celebration were put off by King 

Gustaf III in 1777, since events from the time before the Reformation were not 

considered suitable for grand memorials. 1 

Not until later, during the late 19th century, did memorials of secular institutions or 

individual scientists become commonplace, and this was also the most intense time of 

monumental memorials. Thus, in 1807 the Linnaeus festivities were something new, a 

celebration focusing on science. Maybe this was the ground-breaking, first celebration 

of a scientist – although some sort of memorial was held in Leipzig in 1743, observing 

the bicentenary of Copernicus’ death, and until this is properly studied we cannot know 

for certain. 2 The 1807 celebration was the first one in Sweden, and the first one in 

memory of Linnaeus. 

Linnaean festivities soon grew into a special genre, held for instance in Russia, 

the U.S, the U.K. and Germany during the first half of the 19th century. 3 The memorials 

held in Uppsala and Växjö in 1807 contain elements which became typical for later 

celebrations: 

1. Local or topographical aspects were emphasised, such as the old Botanical Garden 

and Hammarby, where Linnaeus had lived and worked. The new Botanical Garden 

and the building now called Linneanum were inaugurated in 1807, and kept their 

positions in later memorials. 

2. Historical and genealogical aspects are evident. Production and exhibition of Linnaeus 

portraits, Linnaeus’ daughters and their descendants (Linnaeus Jr. died in 1788 without 

an heir) were expected to arouse interest. 

3. The Linnaean disciples are an important lieu de memoire, or site for memory: in 

1807 several of the so-called apostles (who had travelled for Linnaeus) were still 

alive and partook actively in the celebrations. Disciples of the future were also 

saluted, e.g. the Småland Student Nation, to which Linnaeus had belonged, and 

youth-organisations for the study of science. 

4. With the attention given to disciples there followed a closer attention to scientific 

aspects. The significance of Linnaeus was highlighted through donations to research, 

awards and appointments of honorary doctors. With these manifestations, the brilliance 

of Linnaeus reflected upon both his Alma Mater and the disciplines who received 

the grants. 

The memory of Linnaeus was made part of new Royalist traditions, especially

36 


Figure 1. Inauguration of the Linnaeus bust in 

Jardin de Plantes, Paris, in 1790. © Section for Maps 

and Pictures, Uppsala University Library. 

since the Swedish crown, from 1810, 

was transferred to the Bernadottes. 

The memory was also used to 

strengthen patriotic feelings, and (after 

the World Wars) as a tool to promote 

internationalism or a rationalist, 

scientific policy for society. 

The most conspicuous elements 

of the Linnaeus festivities are the 

visual ones. By no means unique for 

Linnaean celebrations, they show that 

such jubilees and memorials continued 

traditions such as academic 

ceremonial, coronations and 

ecclesiastical jubilees. The first 

Linnaeus memorial opened with an 

academic procession and held two 

festive banquets, symbolically 

demonstrating the University’s social 

stance. Another visual component is 

evident in the Linnaeus tokens, which 

were produced already in 1807. Then 

engravings and medals were given 

away. Later, in the spirit of 

consumerism, all kinds of souvenirs 

were sold. 

As a part of the 1807 celebrations, the Linneanum building was inaugurated in 

the Botanical Garden. The edifice had been initiated by King Gustaf III in 1787 and 

was in use already in 1805. Its name and neo-classical appearance disclose its 

monumental purpose, but it was also used for teaching, as official residence for the 

professor, and as a natural history museum. 

Speeches were given on the occasion by two of Linnaeus’ disciples, botany 

professor Carl Peter Thunberg, and the botany teacher Adam Afzelius. They both 

belonged to Uppsala University, which hosted the celebration but had not taken the 

initiative for the memorial. Thunberg, like Linnaeus himself in 1759, stressed the utility 

of science: natural history teaches us about God, Justice and Order, and how to heal 

mankind. Thunberg also praised the enlightened despot Gustaf III, for protecting the 

sciences. 

The idea of celebrating the centenary of Linnaeus first appeared during the autumn 

of 1806. A collection appeal for a sculpture was announced, a sculpture which would 

be unveiled at a celebration in Växjö, the town where Linnaeus received his secondary 

education. The initiator, Sven Hedin, was a man of influence, Court Physician and 

member of the Academy of Science. Possibly, his energy prompted others to follow. 

Some years earlier the botany teacher Afzelius had been asked to supervise a 

society of young botanists. Now he began to turn it into an educational institution


dedicated to the memory of 

Linnaeus. This, he hoped, would help 

his career, which apparently had 

come to a halt. In 1785 he had been 

appointed botanices demonstrator, 

i.e. assistant teacher to the botany 

professor. The professor, Thunberg, 

had held the office since the 1780s 

and had no intention of resigning. 

Afzelius hoped that his non-profit 

teaching of natural history would 

please the King so much he would 

be made professor without having 

to wait for an opportunity. In 1812 

he finally was appointed professor 

extra ordinem in medicine and 

dietetics. Thunberg died in 1828. The 

Linnean chair of medicine and 

botany was transmitted, not to 

Afzelius who by then was 78, but to 

a much younger, promising, scientist, 

Göran Wahlenberg. 

Figure 2. Copperplate of Jonas Forsslund’s Linnaeus 

bust published by Smålands Student Nation in 

Uppsala, 1807. © Section for Maps and Pictures, 

Uppsala University Library. 

Figure 3. Postcard of the Students’ Spring Celebration in front of the Linneanum in the 

Botanical Garden in Uppsala, early 20th century. 

© Section for Maps and Pictures, Uppsala University Library.

38 


Figure 4. Johan Niclas Byström’s statue of 

Linnaeus in Carrara marble, inaugurated in 

Linneanum 1829. Photograph taken by 

Emma Schenson around 1860. 

In 1829 a statue was placed in the 

Linneanum. This statue resulted from an 

initiative of the student body, which also 

paraded and spoke on the occasion. The 

newly formed Student Choir sang of how 

Linnaeus, while still a young man, had lifted 

Nature’s veil, describing the relationship 

between Scientist and Nature as a sort of 

marriage or romance. The Vice-Chancellor, 

historian and poet Erik Gustaf Geijer spoke 

of Linnaeus as a student, which he had been 

in 1729, one century ago. To the student body, 

which a decade later founded the Student 

Corps, the main point would have been the 

focus on the role of Youth, and claiming youth 

as an intellectual force to be reckoned with. 

The bicentenary 

The bicentenary of Linnaeus was celebrated in Sweden and abroad. The 1907 

anniversary can be regarded as the culmination of the Linnaeus cult and of the intense 

period of celebratory memorials. The decades before and after 1900 display, on one 

hand, patriotic memorials and inaugurations: for example, in Sweden a National Day 

was introduced and different national museums were opened. On the other hand, the 

interest in Great Men and the celebration of Science blended in the Nobel Prize from 

Figures 5 & 6. “Linnaeus”, The Swedish Royal Academy 200 Years (1939). 

© Sweden Post Stamps.


Figure 7. “Linnaeus in Lappish Costume 

and Dutch Doctoral Cap”, Linnean 

Journeys (1978). © Sweden Post Stamps. 

1900, while interest in individuals also took 

the form of autograph collecting and a 

Swedish society for the history of individuals 

[personhistoria]. 

Of course, this was not a purely 

Swedish phenomenon. A fruitful comparison 

is that of the memorials of Charles Darwin, 

made the subject of a massive souvenir 

industry from the 1870s. Photographs and 

autographs were sold and Darwin’s home 

became a tourist sight while Darwin was still 

alive and living in the house with his family. During this period, the Linnaean family 

home at Hammarby was taken over from the relatives by the Swedish state and Uppsala 

University, and made into a museum. At the centenary of Linnaeus’ death in 1878 a 

strong interest in Linnaean biography, genealogy, portraits and manuscripts is evident. 

By the late 19th century “home” and “family” were viewed from a new perspective. 

Privacy of family life was regarded as almost sacrosanct, while at the same time the 

family life of the distinguished scientist or author became something highly fascinating. 

Figure 8. The back of the Swedish fifty crowns’ bank-note with a picture of Linnaeus. 

In print from 1965 to 1990. © Sveriges Riksbank.

40 


Figure 9. Æsculapius, Flora and Cupid wreathing the bust of Linnaeus. 

From The Temple of Flora (1799–1807), published by Robert John 

Thornton. © Uppsala University. 

For some time, historians of science have studied the image, memory and 

celebration of famous scientists. Janet Browne, biographer of Darwin, claims that it 

should not be “discarded by historians merely as old-fashioned positivism, or as 

biographical whimsy, but rather instead could be regarded as a sociological phenomenon 

built into the heart of the scientific process – a phenomenon that is well worth our 

attention”. 4 

Returning to May 1907, the town of Uppsala was adorned with flowers, plants 

and Swedish flags. Several members of the royal family attended the festivities. The 

University’s ceremony took place in the University Auditorium. The following day a 

special Linnaeus conferment ceremony [doktorspromotion] was held in the Cathedral. 

The list of honorary doctors included German zoologist Ernst Haeckel, the English 

botanist Francis Darwin (son of Charles); the secretary of the Royal Society, Archibald 

Geikie; the secretary of the Linnean Society of London, Benjamin Daydon Jackson, 

and its former president, William Carruthers. However, the doctores honoris causa 

were mainly Swedish. The Swedish prince and artist Eugen was among those receiving


honorary doctorates, as was the author Selma Lagerlöf, the first female honorary 

doctor ever at Uppsala University. 

When Ernst Haeckel, the “evolutionary biologist” and materialist, received his 

doctorate the audience applauded him, according to the newspapers – contrary to 

academic tradition, let alone regular behaviour in a church. Applause was repeated 

when prince Eugen and Selma Lagerlöf received their respective doctorates, in the 

latter case accompanied by a vigorous waving of handkerchiefs from the balcony, 

where the ladies sat. 

The most important matter of the bicentenary seemed to be taking a stand pro or 

contra modern science, while promoting Linnaeus as a representative of either side of 

the issue. During the years around 1907 a flood of books and articles was published on 

the scientific status of the Linnaean perception of nature, as compared to modern 

botany, geology, zoology and medicine. The extreme opinions would be, on the one 

hand, that the Linnaean theories could not be considered exceptional, either in 1907 or 

during the 18th century. On the other hand, several authors claimed Linnaeus as the 

great predecessor in most fields, regardless of whether they had existed in his lifetime, 

such as evolutionary biology and bacteriology. 5 

After the World Wars, jubilant celebrations in the spirit of romantic nationalism 

were hardly ideal. This apparently did not stop the promotion of Linnaeus as a label for 

a new and modern Sweden. During the 1930s, 40s and 50s, Linnaeus was portrayed 

on chocolate bars, surrogate coffee, and stamps, and in 1965 he became the first nonroyal 

person to appear on a bank-note. This happened to coincide with a time of inquiries 

about the Swedish constitution, which weakened the position of the monarch. 

The Swedish Linnean Society, formed in 1917, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 

1967. It was now stressed that Linnaeus had been subject to many different historical 

evaluations, and the exhibition was a determined attempt to turn away from both the 

stale patriotism and the romantic image of the floral prince to a supposedly realistic 

Figure 10. Mr Flower Power, logotype of Linnaeus 2007 – 

the Swedish tercentenary celebration.

42 


Figure 11. Wax sculpture of Linnaeus manufactured by Madame 

Tussaud’s Ltd in 1966, picture taken in the Linnaeus Garden, Uppsala, in 

1967. © Manuscripts and Music, Uppsala University Library. 

view. Among other things, a wax sculpture in natural size had been manufactured by 

Madame Tussaud’s Ltd. 6 In 1978 the bicentenary of Linnaeus’ death was marked in 

Uppsala Cathedral by a commemorative service and a concert. The president of the 

Swedish Linnaeus Society (again) pointed out that Linnaeus was not an impeccable 

prince of flowers, but “in all his academic greatness”, a human being with flaws and 

shortcomings. 

The celebratory series of postage stamps did not focus on the person, but (rather 

characteristic for this period of society interest) on geographical images from the 

Linnaean journeys, although one portrait was among them. It claimed to depict Linnaeus 

in Lappish costume and a Dutch doctoral cap, although the headgear is neither doctoral 

nor Dutch, and not, as has been also claimed, a Lappish ladies’ bonnet.


Conclusions 

Since the late 18th century, the memory of Linnaeus has been evoked in support 

of political, scientific and cultural ideas. Shortly after Linnaeus’ death, the crown 

expressed an interest in creating a Linnaeus memorial, by initiating the building of the 

Linneanum. Due to this, Uppsala University began using Linnaeus as a symbol of 

Sweden, the University, Science and the Future. When the time made it possible to 

mark the first centenary, private initiatives – mostly Sven Hedin’s – strengthened such 

tendencies. The first memorial of Linnaeus included diverse goals and motives. Sven 

Hedin was lead by a genuine wish to make a tribute to his teacher and benefactor, 

while Adam Afzelius had career ambitions. Various projects directed attention towards 

Uppsala University, the landscape of Småland and the kingdom of Sweden. Later, 

students could celebrate Linnaeus in order to promote their own public position. By the 

turn of the century, nationalism and rural romanticism were jostling with the faith in 

scientific progress. 

The 2007 tercentenary has not yet been made subject to historical research. It is 

important to continue the study of the images, interpretations and memorials of scientists 

like Linnaeus. He should not be made into a colonial racist, a green-wave ecologist, or 

a forerunner of DNA barcoding – out of respect for history, and for Linnaeus himself. 

Footnotes 

1. Carl Frängsmyr & Hanna Östholm, “En hoppets fest för vetenskaplig odling: Linné som 

festföremål, symbol och monument”, Låt inte råttor och mal förtära… Linnésamlingarna 

i Uppsala, eds. Roland Moberg et al. with a summary in English (2007), pp. 4 ff., 15 f., 60 f. 

Johann Christoph Gottsched, Gedächtnißrede auf den unsterblich verdienten Domherrn 

in Frauenberg Nicolaus Copernicus, als den Erfinder des wahren Weltbaues, welche in 

hoher Gegenwart zweyer Durchlaucht. Königl. Pohln. und Churfürstl. Sächsischer Prinzen 

auf der Universitätsbibliothek zu Leipzig ... und also zweyhundert Jahre nach seinem 

Tode gehalten (1743). 

2. Johann Christoph Gottsched, Gedächtnißrede auf den unsterblich verdienten Domherrn in 

Frauenberg Nicolaus Copernicus, als den Erfinder des wahren Weltbaues, welche in 

hoher Gegenwart zweyer Durchlaucht. Königl. Pohln. und Churfürstl. Sächsischer Prinzen 

auf der Universitätsbibliothek zu Leipzig ... und also zweyhundert Jahre nach seinem 

Tode gehalten (1743). 

3. Celebration at Flushing, Of the Birthday of Linnaeus, By the New York-Branch of the 

Linnaean Society at Paris, As Reported For the New York Stateman (1824); Gotthelf 

Fischer von Waldheim, Fête séculaire de Charles de Linné, célébrée par la Société Impériale 

des Naturalistes de Moscou le 24/12 Juin 1835 (1835); Samuel Farmer Jarvis, An Address 

To the Citizens of Hartford, On the Birthday of Linnaeus: May 24th,1836 in Behalf of the 

Objects of the Natural History Society, Formed October 8th, 1835 (1836); K. F. P. von 

Martius, Linné und der Zweifler: Ein Vortrag gehalten am Linnéus-Feste den 24. Mai 

1838 (1839); K. F. P. von Martius, “Rede zum Linnäusfeste, in Ebenhausen bei München, 

gehalten 1842, 4. Juni”, Flora 1842:25–26 (1842). 

4. Janet Browne, Science and Celebrity: Commemorating Charles Darwin, The Hans Rausing 

Lecture 2004, Uppsala University, Salvia Småskrifter 5 (2005), p. 8. 

5. Carl von Linnés betydelse såsom naturforskare och läkare, vols. 1–4, ed. Kungl. 

Vetenskapsakademien (1907); Wilhelm Junk, Carl v. Linné und seine Bedeutung für die

44 


Bibliographie (1907); Hans Tedin, Linné och jordbruket (1907); K. A. Westling, Linnés 

ställning till kristendomen: Några reflexioner med anledning av Linnés 

tvåhundraårsminne (1907); Ernst Almquist, Om Linné som hygieniker (1908); L.A. 

Jägerskiöld, Sveriges förste turist [Carl von Linné] (1908); Edward Lee Greene, Linnaeus 

as an Evolutionist (1909); Ernst Almquist, Linné und die Mikroorganismen (1909); cf. 

Bengt Lidforss, “Carl von Linné: Föredrag på tvåhundraårsdagen av hans födelse”, 

Vetenskap och världsåskådning, Samlade skrifter VII (2 ed.; Stockholm, 1917). 

6. The quest to move away from the romantic and patriotic image of Linnaeus was shared by the 

Swedish historian of science Sten Lindroth, who wrote frequently on the theme in public 

press during the 50s and 60s, cf. Dagens Nyheter 4.12 1955.


The Origin of and the Philosophy behind 

Linnaeus’ Sexual System 

Nils Uddenberg 

Centre for History of Science at the Royal Academy of Sciences, 

Box 50005, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden 

Today Carolus Linnaeus is primarily remembered as a taxonomist. More 

specifically his memory is associated with the Latin binominal names that are still in 

use when we want to designate an organism – be it an animal or a plant. Also in his 

own eyes he was the great taxonomist and he proudly stated Deus creavit, Linnaeus 

disposuit – God created, Linnaeus ordered. 

Linnaeus’ career was unusually consequent. Already as a young school student 

in the little cathedral town of Växjö in southern Sweden, he seems to have made up his 

mind to catalogue every organism in the world – and first of all the plants. He had 

found his mission and he accomplished it. In Växjö Linnaeus had been lucky to meet 

with an understanding teacher – Johan Rothman. Rothman was a physician, and a 

capable botanist. Furthermore, he was very well informed about the latest ideas within 

botany and put the most recent botanical literature under his pupil’s eyes. 

Among these books was Valentini’s Historia Plantarum, an introduction to the 

botanical taxonomy presented by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort. In the history of botanical 

classification Tournefort is well-known for his interest in the concept of genus. Tournefort 

brought together several similar species in a genus that he tried to define as exactly as 

possible. Linnaeus eagerly picked up Tournefort’s idea and the genus concept remained 

central in his taxonomy throughout his life. 

Rothman also showed Linnaeus Sebastian Vaillant’s Sermo de structura florum. 

Vaillant was an early advocate of the idea that not only animals but even plants 

reproduced sexually. The botanically interested young man was immediately attracted 

by this theory and a few years later he used the sexual parts of the flowers – the 

stamens and the pistils – as the basis for his classification of the plants. All plants were 

grouped together in 24 classes, defined by the number and arrangement of the stamens. 

Within each class, the plants were sorted in different orders depending on the number 

of pistils. For instance the Iris, which has three stamens and one pistil belonged to the 

order Monogynia in the class Triandria. 

This so-called “sexual system” proved itself very convenient. Not only could it be 

used to organise all those plants already known to the botanists and herbalists of the 

time but all new plants that were brought home to Europe from foreign continents 

could find their place in Linnaeus’ system. In Linnaeus’ time, when new organisms 

were constantly being discovered, this openness proved invaluable. 

But let us have a closer look at Linnaeus’ achievement. In the 18th century – just 

as today – taxonomy had two different objectives: first, it should offer a way of 

identifying, defining and naming the organisms. Second, the classification of the

46 


organisms should reveal some kind of natural order. Precisely as the modern taxonomists 

do, Linnaeus tried to present a “natural system”. Nowadays the taxonomists try to 

trace the course of evolution through millions of years and group the various organisms 

according to their descent and how they are related to each other. To Linnaeus a 

natural system was something quite different. As did most 18th century naturalists, 

Linnaeus believed in a divine creation. To him the most natural taxonomy was the one 

that best reflected God’s ideas, when He created the world. 

As long as it concerned the first of these objects – identifying and naming the 

organisms – Linnaeus was remarkably successful. He could feel content with himself 

– and so he certainly did. When it came to finding out “the order of Nature”, however, 

he was less convinced that he had found the solution. Already in the first edition of 

Systema Naturae (1735) he complains about the fact that the “sexual system” was 

hardly a “natural system”. In the future, he writes, he will endeavour to construct and 

publish a much better and more “natural” system. 

Before I discuss Linnaeus searching for a natural system, I should like to comment 

a little upon his identification and naming of the organisms. Partly inspired by the famous 

Dutch physician Herman Boerhaave, Linnaeus was a dedicated advocate of Descartes’ 

ideas. Like this 17th century philosopher he was convinced that naturalists should 

strive to use characters that could be measured, weighed or counted. From this point 

of view the number of stamens and pistils was perfect and Linnaeus used these 

characters to define his classes and orders. Similarly, the different genera within the 

classes and orders were defined by obvious and visible attributes. 

Linnaeus’ Cartesian conviction also meant that he avoided using invisible 

characteristics, e.g. the “virtues” – that is the medical properties or purported medical 

properties – of the plants when classifying them. By doing so he broke with an old 

tradition. For instance, John Gerard in his famous Herbal, first published in 1597, 

tended to group the plants according to their usefulness in the kitchen or as 

pharmaceuticals. When Linnaeus discarded this type of characteristic it was an important 

step towards modern biological classification. 

I cannot avoid pointing out that Linnaeus’ stubborn sticking to distinct, visible and 

preferably measurable attributes also had another and more radical consequence. As 

is well known, Linnaeus was the first biologist to include us, humans (Homo sapiens), 

in the order Primates under the class of Mammals (Mammalia). His grounds for 

taking this step were very simple. Ever since Aristotle, man had been considered the 

only animal that was endowed with reason – that is the capacity of rational thinking. 

Most pre-Linnaean naturalists had used this capacity as a taxonomic character and 

thus had sorted out humans as the only rational animal. This done, they could start to 

classify the “ordinary animals”. Linnaeus simply noted that the rational mind was not 

visible; it could not be weighed or measured, and consequently it could not be used as 

a taxonomic character. And if he ignored reason, he could note that the anatomical 

similarities between monkeys, apes and humans were so important that they ought to 

be grouped together as primates. However, it is important to observe that Linnaeus did 

not deny that humans had a soul or a rational mind – nor did he imagine that man 

descended from the apes. He only adhered to his principles: invisible characters should 

not be used for classification.


Linnaeus’ most important innovation was probably the use of binominal names. 

Generally Linnaeus presented elaborate arguments for his different innovations. 

However, he had little to say about the binominal names. Probably he simply found the 

long Latin phrase-names that had been used previously too inconvenient. Typically 

enough, the first place where he made use of the binominal names was in an index. In 

1741 Linnaeus visited Öland and Gotland, the two limestone islands in the Baltic that 

have a very special flora, and some years later (1745) he reported his observations. In 

the index to this book he has listed his botanical findings. The plants are ordered in 

concordance with the sexual system and each species is presented under its generic 

name with a discriminating species epithet. 

It appears as if Linnaeus gradually became more and more convinced that the 

binominal names were extremely convenient and eight years later he was ready to 

introduce them on the international arena. In his Species Plantarum (1753) Linnaeus 

used this convenient invention throughout the text and this work, consequently, forms 

the basis of all modern botanical nomenclature. 

Apart from being short, the binominal names had another advantage. The old 

phrase names were supposed to describe each species so that it could be discriminated 

from all other species. However, when a new species – closely related to one previously 

described – was discovered, these phrase-names often had to be changed. The binominal 

names, however, could be kept constant. When a new species was discovered, just a 

new name had to be invented. Moreover, different authors had often used different 

phrases to describe the same species. In an early pamphlet Linnaeus had argued that 

the same phrase-names should be used by all authors. However, his colleagues had not 

always complied with this piece of good advice, and the nomenclature remained 

heterogeneous. Thus, it is hardly astonishing that Linnaeus’ binominal names immediately 

became very popular. 

As long as it concerned the first objective of taxonomy, namely to offer a method 

of identifying and naming the various organisms, Linnaeus’ system was very successful. 

However, when it came to finding a natural system, he had less success. Already in the 

first edition of Systema Naturae (1735) he had pointed out that the sexual system was 

not a “natural system”, and he had frequent opportunities to note that the classes he 

had constructed were often very heterogeneous. One example would be the class 

Diandria, where Linnaeus collected all plants with two stamens. This class contained 

one single species of grass, Anthoxanthum odoratum (Sweet Vernal-grass) whereas 

most other species of grass were to be found in the class Triandria, containing plants 

that have three stamens. To offer another example, the class Octandria was very 

heterogenous, containing plants that we now refer to families as different as 

Onagraceae, Ericaceae and Polygonaceae, and individual species like Adoxa 

moschatellina (moschatel) and Paris quadrifolia (Herb Paris). 

Throughout his life Linnaeus tried to order plants and other organisms in a way 

that reflected the order of God’s creation. There is, however, good evidence that he 

was not satisfied. Just let me give you one example: in the second edition of his Flora 

Suecica (1755) – Swedish flora – he presented the amphibious bistort Polygonum 

amphibium, nowadays often Persicaria amphibia, under the class Octandria, where 

it was grouped together with other species within the genus Polygonum. However, in

48 


his description of the amphibious bistort Polygonum amphibium, he starts by telling us 

that this species has five stamens. How could he be so inconsistent that he placed a 

plant that has five stamens in the class Octandria – defined by having eight stamens? 

Ten years earlier, in the first edition of Flora Suecica (1745) Polygonum amphibium 

is properly placed in the class Pentandria – plants with five stamens. However, in the 

second edition Linnaeus has changed his mind and classified this plant in Octandria. 

The reason is probably that he has noted that the various species within his genus 

Polygonum have much in common and thus ought to be brought together. Consequently 

he was prepared to break with his own system and put Polygonum amphibium in the 

same class as the other species within this genus, which often have eight stamens. 

One result of his efforts to find a “natural system” was Philosophia Botanica 

(1751), where he presented 63 “natural orders”, which to some extent correspond to 

modern plant families. We also know that he lectured about what he called his “natural 

system”. The German botanist P.D. Giseke spent the summer of 1771 at Hammarby 

where he took part in the private lectures given by the aging professor. More than 

twenty years later (1792) he related what Linnaeus had to say about the natural 

relationship between plants. Giseke’s pamphlet contains a map that was inspired by 

Linnaeus’ teachings. Here the “natural orders of plants” were represented by circles 

of different sizes – the larger the circle, the greater the number of plants within the 

“natural order” in question. Further, those circles that were placed close to one another 

contained plants that Linnaeus considered similar in one respect or another. Giseke has 

even indicated some names of plant genera that Linnaeus wanted to put at the borderline 

between some of his “natural plant orders”. For instance, according to Giseke, Linnaeus 

had put ferns and palms close to one another because both had fronds. Where these 

two circles touched each other, but among the ferns, he had placed the two cycad 

genera Cycas and Zamia. 

Linnaeus often expressed a rather static view of nature. For instance, in the 

introduction to the first edition of Systema Naturae (1735) one could read: “Since 

there are no new species; since like always produce like offspring” it is necessary that 

each species takes its origin in “some Almighty and All-knowing Being, namely God 

whose work is called Creation”. In the same text he also wrote: “If we regard the 

work of God, it will be shown convincingly enough to everyone that each living being 

stems from an egg, and that every egg gives new life to an offspring that resembles the 

parents to the highest degree. Consequently, no new species will now originate”. The 

young son of a priest from the province of Småland had no doubts. Nothing had ever 

changed since the Creation. 

However, a few years later Linnaeus’ view of nature was challenged. In the late 

summer of 1742 a student named Siöberg was botanising in Roslagen, east of Uppsala. 

There he found a plant that he did not recognise, so he brought it back to Uppsala 

where it came under the eyes of Linnaeus. Linnaeus became puzzled. In most respects 

the plant resembled a yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris), but the flowers did not look 

the way they usually did. A normal toadflax flower resembles a snapdragon, it is 

bilaterally symmetrical – zygomorphic as botanists say – with a big yellow dented lip 

and a spur protruding backwards. The new plant however had radially symmetrical


flowers; they could be described as a tube with five lobes spreading out at the top and 

five spurs protruding in different directions at the bottom. In Flora Suecica the yellow 

toadflax is placed within the class Didynamia, that is plants having four stamens where 

two are longer and two shorter. The new plant, however, had five stamens, all of the 

same length, and consequently should have been attributed to another class, Pentandria. 

It was, Linnaeus wrote, “like a cow having given birth to a calf with a wolf’s head”. 

Linnaeus’ conception of the world threatened to collapse. According to his own 

principles, he ought to establish a new species or even a new genus. But, he did not. 

Linnaeus was always reluctant to raise varieties to the level of species, and instead of 

presenting the peculiar yellow toadflax as a new, previously unknown species, it became 

the subject of a special investigation in the little pamphlet De Peloria (1744) – About 

Peloria. The name Linnaeus gave his find is telling: the term Peloria comes from the 

Greek word for monster. Today we know that the aberrant yellow toadflax was the 

result of a so-called mutation, an irregular variation of one gene. But Linnaeus knew 

nothing about genes and mutations. Instead he presented the hypothesis that the Peloria 

had arisen from the cross-fertilisation of the common toadflax with some other plant. 

This radical idea contradicted much of what Linnaeus had taken for granted 

earlier in life. But the notion of new forms developing from old forms that cross-bred 

with each other was gradually assuming an ever more important place in his natural 

philosophy, and in a publication called Plantae Hybridae (1751) – Plant Hybrids – he 

presented an entire list of plants that he supposed could have originated in this way. He 

even went so far as to imagine that the Creator’s work had ended when he had formed 

the genera, or perhaps even at the level of the orders. Later, the original forms that 

God had created had spontaneously blended with one another and given rise to the 

different genera and species. 

Linnaeus even presented a detailed theory about the effects of cross-breeding. 

The plants, he thought with reference to the Italian 16th century botanist Andrea 

Cesalpino, consisted of bark and pith – these words must not be understood in the 

sense of modern plant anatomy. Linnaeus associated the pith with the female organ, 

the pistil and the bark with male stamens. When pollen from one plant fertilised the 

pistil of another, “pith” and “bark” were thus combined in a new way. 

Towards the end of Linnaeus’ life, his perception of nature was less static than it 

had been earlier. Certainly he still held to his belief in God the Creator, but he had 

abandoned the idea that every species had been conceived at the moment of creation 

and that no changes had occurred thereafter. While in the earlier editions of Systema 

Naturae he determined that there were as many species as God had originally created, 

he cancelled this statement in the later editions of the same book. Perhaps God did not 

even have a finger in the new hybrid species being created. In some of his late 

publications Linnaeus talked about “nature” or even “chance” having taken over. 

Of course the theories of this Swedish 18th century botanist do not stand up to 

modern inspection, but still the ability to make such a radical revision of the very basic 

assumptions of his taxonomy testifies to the greatness of Linnaeus as a researcher. 

Perhaps it is also worth pointing out that modern botanists are also of the opinion that 

new plant species can rather often arise from two species cross-fertilising each other.

50 


The dream of finding the divinely given order of plants runs like a red thread 

through all of Linnaeus’ achievements. Some of his most prominent theoretical 

contributions were made when he tried to understand how God had arranged his Creation. 

Nowadays it is common to put science and faith in opposition to one another, and there 

is no denying that the advocates of science have had to battle intolerant religious 

authorities. Remarkably enough, the debate that followed in the wake of Darwin’s 

evolutionary theories is still going on. But in the case of Linnaeus the conflict between 

faith and science was not as clear-cut, and when he sought “the natural system” he 

was driven by a combination of scientific curiosity and religious fervor to understand 

God’s creation. Consequently, Linnaeus was not torn between religious piety and 

scientific knowledge. On the contrary, to him science was a way of paying homage to 

the Creator.


Linnaeus’ Sexual System and Flowering Plant 

Phylogeny 

Birgitta Bremer FLS 

Bergius Foundation at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 

and Botany Department, Stockholm University, 

SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden 

This year we celebrate the tercentenary of the birth of Carl Linnaeus. He brought 

order to the knowledge of plants and animals by arranging all known species in 

encyclopaedic works. He established a nomenclatural system for plants and animals 

still in use. He proposed a system of plants, the sexual system, based on the number 

and arrangement of male and female organs in the flowers. With the anniversary, the 

life and work of Linnaeus has come into focus. There is a great interest in information 

as to what extent his classification of plants actually corresponds to what we know 

today about plant relationships. His sexual system has long ago been replaced by 

“natural” or phylogenetic systems of flowering plants. There has never been a 

comprehensive comparison of the sexual system with modern plant classification. Here, 

I have made such a comparison between the sexual system in Linnaeus’ principal 

work Species Plantarum (Linnaeus 1753) and the currently used APG-system of 

flowering plants (APG 2003) (Fig. 1). 

Linnaeus’ sexual system is an artificial system in the sense that it is constructed 

by first choosing a number of key characters and then sorting the species according to 

these key characters. In this case, the key characters comprise the number and 

arrangement of stamens and pistils in the flowers. Linnaeus observed that these 

characters are stable and very rarely subject to variation within the species. He was 

Figure 1. The number of APG-orders in current classification (y-axis) represented in each of 

the 23 flowering plant classes of Linnaeus.

52 


well aware that his system was in some sense artificial. He also presented fragments 

of a natural system, where plants also similar in many other characters were classified 

together, but he never completed it and instead returned to his sexual system. 

The sexual system comprises 24 classes, 23 of which contain the flowering plants 

(Table 1), with stamens and pistils. Most of the classes are defined by the number (1– 

12 or many) and arrangement of the stamens (1–12 or many, evenly arranged or in 

groups, equally or unequally long, free or fused). Some classes are also defined by the 

arrangement of the stamens in relation to the pistils (free or fused with the pistils, in 

different flowers, on different plants). Some of these stamen and pistil arrangements 

are very rare, e.g. seven stamens (class Heptandria), and thus comprise very few 

species, others are common, e.g. five stamens (class Pentandria) which characterise 

thousands of species. 

The currently most used classification of flowering plants is the APG-system, an 

ordinal classification for the families of flowering plants, proposed by an international 

group of plant systematists known as the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG 2003). 

The APG-system is based on comprehensive phylogenies of flowering plants, 

reconstructed by analysis of extensive DNA sequence data. Due to the increasing 

amount of sequence data, flowering plant phylogeny is today known in considerable 

detail and with great certainty. We thus know how flowering plants evolved and how 

they are related to each other, the basis for what may be called a natural classification. 

Table 1. Linnaeus’ sexual 

system, classes 1–23. 

1 Monandria 

2 Diandria 

3 Triandria 

4 Tetrandria 

5 Pentandria 

6 Hexandria 

7 Heptandria 

8 Octandria 

9 Enneandria 

10 Decandria 

11 Dodecandria 

12 Icosandria 

13 Polyandria 

14 Didymania 

15 Tetradynamia 

16 Monadelphia 

17 Diadelphia 

18 Polyadelphia 

19 Syngenesia 

20 Gynandria 

21 Monoecia 

22 Dioecia 

23 Polygamia 

About 250,000 species of flowering plants have 

been described. In the APG-system they are classified 

in 453 families and these families are classified in 45 

orders. Most of the species and many of the families, 

including those of six of the 45 orders, were not 

known at the time of Linnaeus. Families and orders 

in the APG-system are arranged in ten larger informal 

groups representing major branches in the flowering 

plant phylogenetic tree. Three such groups are the 

monocots (e.g. lilies, orchids, grasses, palms), the 

rosids (e.g. roses, legumes, birches, maples, and 

numerous other herbaceous and woody plants), and 

the asterids (e.g. asters, sunflowers, bluebells, 

primroses, and numerous other mostly herbaceous 

plants). Each of these three groups comprises 

between one third and one quarter of all flowering 

plants. Magnolias and water lilies are examples of 

plants that do not belong to any of these three groups. 

In the mid-18th century, when Linnaeus 

published Species Plantarum (Linnaeus 1753) with 

a complete list of all known species of flowering 

plants, about 7,000 species were known. Linnaeus 

classified all these species into over 1,000 genera 

and 23 classes (e.g. sunflower in the genus 

Helianthus in the class Syngenesia). I have


examined all these genera and classified them according to order and major group 

(monocots, rosids, asterids) in the APG-system (2003) (e.g. sunflower in the order 

Asterales in the asterids). 

Figure 1 displays the numbers of APG-orders represented within the classes of 

the sexual system. Furthermore, for each class it is shown how many of these orders 

belong to the monocots, the rosids, and the asterids. The latter three groups represent 

major branches of the flowering plant phylogenetic tree and hence groups of entirely 

unrelated plants (except in the sense that they are all flowering plants). All classes 

except one, number 15 Tetradynamia, comprise groups of unrelated plants. Not 

surprisingly, the sexual system does not display what we know today about plant 

interrelationships. The class Tetradynamia is characterised by two short and four long 

stamens and it comprises what we know today as the family Brassicaceae with cabbage, 

cauliflower, broccoli, mustard, etc. Class 18 Polyadelphia is characterised by stamens 

arranged in groups and it comprises only rosids, however several families are not 

closely related to each other. 

As is evident from this analysis there is little correspondence between the sexual 

system and the APG-system. This does not mean that the sexual system has been 

useless or misleading. As an artificial system, it was well chosen and at the time when 

it was introduced by Linnaeus, it formed the basis for much intensified research and 

increased knowledge of plants. 

References 

APG 2003. An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and 

families of flowering plants: APG II. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 141: 399–436. 

Linnaeus, C. 1753. Species Plantarum. Stockholm. 

This paper was published in April 2008 by the Nordic Journal of Botany 25(1- 

2), and was published Online Early on Blackwell–Synergy. It is reproduced here with 

permission from Maria Persson, Managing Editor for Nordic Journal of Botany. Eds.

54 



Science or poetry? Vernacular plant names and 

binary nomenclature in Sweden around 1900 

Jenny Beckman 

Research Fellow, Stockholm Resilience Centre, 

Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden 

Around the turn of the 20th century, a battle raged through the nation about the 

jurisdiction over Swedish plant names. University botanists, pedagogues, linguists, 

agricultural scientists and seed inspectors published their views in heated articles on 

the necessity – or uselessness – of vernacular names in general, the appropriateness 

of specific names, and above all, who should have the privilege of determining these 

names, and for what purposes. 

This paper examines how questions such as these were used to stake out scientific 

and pedagogic territories in Sweden a century ago and how nomenclature became a 

means of discussing the role of botany, and science in general, in education, agriculture, 

and among the general public. Although this brief episode from the history of plant 

nomenclature primarily concerns vernacular names, it nevertheless concerns aspects 

that are central to most kinds of terminological considerations: authority and 

communication. 

Linnaeus, Fries, and early attempts to collect and standardise plant names 

Linnaeus’ influence on the ideas and practices of developing a national standard 

for vernacular nomenclature was profound, and in several ways it mirrors the importance 

of Linnaean binary nomenclature for the standardisation of communication in biology. 

Many historians of science have pointed out that the participants of “the Botanic 

Republic” in the 18th century – to use Linnaeus’ own term – and the users of the 

scientific information produced, were a much more extensive group of people than the 

small number of academic botanists in 18th century Europe (Koerner 1995, Stafleu 

1971). The Linnaean system was designed to be accessible to people with only a 

rudimentary knowledge of plants and science. Armed only with a copy of one of 

Linnaeus’ own handbooks (originally written in simple Latin but inviting local editions 

and translations into the vernacular), anyone should be able to identify any plant in the 

system. By establishing a channel of communication between establishment botanists 

and clergymen, farmers, even women, Linnaeus wanted to disseminate his own findings. 

At the same time, and in line with the mercantilist politics of the period, the knowledge 

of the common people could be made accessible to the Swedish state by clothing it in 

scientific terms. 

In his eagerness to harvest the wisdom of the people, Linnaeus also took a keen 

interest in vernacular names of plants and animals. He constructed new Swedish names 

for economically important groups of plants such as grasses – most plants, of course, 

lacked species-names in the modern sense. But he also tried to document ideas about 

plant uses and characteristics hidden in the rich variety of regional names. Thus, for

56 


Linnaeus and his contemporaries, vernacular nomenclature as well as the Latin system 

filled important functions in the communication of botanical and economic information 

between different groups. 

The triumphal progress of binary nomenclature through the scientific world also 

had an impact on vernacular nomenclature. In 1792, Samuel Liljeblad published a flora 

where many genera had been given Swedish names in direct accordance with their 

Latin designations: for instance, yew was called “Tax” after the Latin Taxus, and 

Solanum tuberosum was given the semi-Swedish designation “Potates-Solan” (Liljeblad 

1792). Many botanists resisted these attempts to bring vernacular names in line with 

the Latin ones (Nathorst 1903–4, Lyttkens 1904–15). Elias Fries, professor of botany 

in Uppsala 1834–1859 and a participant in the Romantic movement, considered plant 

names to be expressions of the “innate appreciation of nature” of the Swedish people, 

and was reluctant to force the diversity of the vernacular into the straitjacket of 

systematics (Fries 1852a, 1852b). However, he also regretted the confusion created 

by the variety of regional names, and worked on a critical dictionary of plant names 

where the folk names were to be brought to a gentle consensus (Fries 1880). 

Educational reforms and horticulture 

Traditionally, the role of science in Swedish curricula was insignificant but, towards 

the end of the 19th century, science gained space both in the elementary schools and in 

the higher education system. Compulsory Latin was abolished in the universities, leading 

to a stronger focus on science in secondary schools; and in the elementary schools 

science was considered an excellent subject in which to practice the teachings of the 

current pedagogical fashion, object lessons. The new teaching colleges and the private 

girls’ schools were hothouses of pedagogical reform, and the growing flora of semivocational 

secondary schools of agriculture and forestry were central to the expanding, 

and diversifying, educational system (Beckman 1999, Florin & Johansson 1993, Sörensen 

1942). 

Although science education took many forms in these different contexts, botany 

was central to them all. It was the only science subject that elementary school children 

were certain to encounter, and floristic studies remained at the heart of botanical 

education. Learning species was compulsory in elementary schools, and the secondary 

school boys were expected to compile substantial herbaria. Plant collecting united the 

old system of learning-by-rote and the new ideals of excursions and learning through 

direct contact with the objects of study (Jonsell & Hultgård 1999). 

With the development of national curricula, educators argued for the necessity of 

national textbooks and floras, instead of the local floras used in the secondary schools. 

As the Latin bias of higher education weakened and the educational system itself was 

branching out in new directions, voices were raised for the compilation of a national 

guide to Swedish plants using Swedish names. They argued that botany was a central 

element of civic education and should be available to all, regardless of their knowledge 

of Latin (Arnell 1904, Fries 1852b, Johansson 1901, Neuman 1903, Wintzell 1903). 

Alongside textbooks and fieldguides, horticulture was an important arena for the 

collection and dissemination of plant names. Vernacular as well as scientific nomenclature 

was distributed through journals, manuals and seed catalogues; for instance, the


horticultural literature was one of the most important fora for the dissemination of 

Linnaean nomenclature in 18th century England (Stafleu 1971). Market gardens 

advertised the latest plants and varieties under a variety of designations, and Swedish 

botanists and linguists were particularly concerned over the import of German names 

through the lively exchange with German breeders. As Elias Fries put it: “In the old 

days, the German Kräuterbucher were the worst enemies of our native plant names; 

today, many prefer the gaudy denominations of the seed catalogues of German Gärtner 

over our old, decent, Swedish names” (Fries 1880). 

“Normalförteckningen” – The Standard List 

With the academisation of agriculture during the 19th century, the fields of 

agriculture, horticulture and education were brought into even closer correlation. In 

1894, the National Board of Agriculture published the spark that was to set fire to the 

botanical world: a Standard List of Swedish plant names, to be used in agricultural 

education and seed testing. The purpose was twofold: to provide nomenclatural uniformity 

in the Latin-free schools of agriculture and forestry as well as in state elementary 

schools, and to facilitate communication between farmers and agricultural officials 

(Normalförteckning öfver svenska växtnamn 1894). 

The principle behind the Standard List was described by its creators as “popularly 

scientific”, in contrast to both “purely scientific” nomenclature and “naive folk names”. 

In the popular imagination objects lacking natural relations were grouped together, and 

thus naive folk names – though beautiful and evocative – could serve little pedagogical 

purpose. Purely scientific nomenclature, on the other hand, depended on minute 

differences between species, difficult to distinguish for the common people and subject 

to constant re-evaluation from the scientists. More importantly, Latin names lacked 

any connection to “popular sentiment” (Fries 1852b). 

But “popularly scientific” nomenclature would unite the advantages of these two 

systems. It would be popular in the sense of using the appeal of the vernacular, and 

glossing over esoteric classificatory distinctions. But it would also be scientific, because 

it would apply scientific principles to vernacular names: it would use the system of 

binary nomenclature. 

Every vernacular name should consist of two parts, a stem and a prefix, with the 

stem signifying the genus and the prefix the species. Thus, the names of sunflowers 

and Jerusalem artichokes (in Swedish “jordärtskockor”) should reflect the fact that 

they belonged to the same genus Helianthus, and accordingly sunflowers – whose 

Swedish name “solrosor”, “sunroses”, might delude the ignorant into supposing them 

to be related to actual roses – should be known as “sunchokes” (“solskockor”) (Laurell 

1904a). 

Whose authority? 

The Standard List caused pandemonium in the botanical world. “Who” – in the 

words of one combatant – “has the right to create new plant names?” (Lyttkens 1904– 

15) On the face of it, anyone who demonstrated “that good taste, that fresh simplicity 

and clear appreciation of nature which are evident in all those who live in close proximity 

with nature” (Lindman 1903). But in actual fact, the Standard List was interpreted as 

a blatant attempt to encroach on the authority of the metropolitan botanical establishment.

58 


Reactions to the List reflect academic politics of the time. University botanists in general, 

and members of the Academy of Sciences in particular, were surely the only ones 

competent to judge the propriety of plant names, and wanted to disqualify all agricultural 

scientists from discussing nomenclature (Nathorst 1903–4, Nathorst 1905). 

The debate reflects the diversification of botanical research at the turn of the 

20th century. The academic agricultural establishment was developing an independent 

institutional structure, increasingly separate from the old universities and academies 

alike (Mårald 2000). With educational institutions, research stations and an academy 

of their own, agricultural scientists were confident that they could establish autonomous 

scientific standards, as well. The “popularly scientific” nomenclature of the Standard 

List expressed a view of the uses and requirements of botany and of botany education 

that was related to, but not dependent on, the Academy of Sciences and the state 

secondary schools. The Academy of Sciences did not have the monopoly of scientific 

knowledge, as one of the creators of the list explained to a critic who had questioned 

the genus concept of the Standard List: 

What is a genus? Well, if Professor N. himself could answer this deceptively simple 

question, he would undoubtedly do a great service to science: because no one has 

yet managed to provide an objective and universal basis for the division into genera. 

The current confusion in this issue is proof of that. In fact, therefore the ‘popularly 

scientific’ systematics should be as scientifically justified as the “purely scientific”! 

(Laurell 1904b) 

Communication and continuity 

The heat of the debate notwithstanding, the academic botanists might still have 

shrugged off this challenge to their authority – after all, most people who mattered 

never used vernacular names at all. But soon after the publication of the Standard List, 

its names began to find their way into textbooks intended for ordinary elementary and 

secondary schools. This implied that the ways of communicating botanical information 

were changing, not only in agricultural contexts but in the whole of the botanical world, 

from rural children making their first acquaintance with science in school to students 

preparing for university entrance. This triggered a new surge of opposition to the Standard 

List from establishment botanists. They painted a very bleak picture of the consequences 

of the new names, not only in the schools but for the Swedish people. 

From a scientific perspective, the new names generated a flawed understanding 

of the relationships between natural objects, as the popular genera were not quite the 

same as the purely scientific ones. Simultaneously they suffered from one of the most 

serious problems of scientific nomenclature in that any changes in taxonomy would 

either disrupt the careful correspondence between Latin and Swedish nomenclature, 

or subject the latter to the same instability as the former. Moreover, the new, unnatural 

names would destroy the deep connection between country people and nature mediated 

through those vernacular plant names which – in the words of one German commentator 

had been used for centuries and were profoundly tied to the thoughts and feelings 

of the people (Meigen 1898). 

Thus, a form of “poetry of the people” would be lost – and with it, an important 

source of botanical information (Fries 1843, Fries 1852b).


The importance of nomenclature for communication in science was a central – 

and controversial – issue among botanists at the turn of the 20th century, when alternative 

standards were being proposed in different national and scientific contexts (Nicolson 

1991). But outside academic circles, names were equally, if not more, important: among 

those users and producers of botanical knowledge whom we might call amateurs (Alberti 

2001, Keeney 1992, Kohlstedt 1976). If the ability to correctly name plants was necessary 

for communication between academic botanists, it often embodied the total knowledge 

of amateurs. Historian of science Anne Secord has vividly described the meetings of 

artisan botanists in Lancashire in the mid-19th century, where the highlight was the 

collective naming of the weekly harvest of plants (Secord 1994). Knowledge of the 

names of plants was the link between artisan botanists and those academic botanists 

who – through them – gained access to rare specimens, habitats and localities and 

other kinds of botanical information in exchange for recognition. Names were the 

currency in this scientific economy. As one of the harshest critics of the Standard List 

wrote: 

Swedish plant names have a justified claim of belonging to the nation, the people, 

the public, and not just a small clique of botanists, not to mention of elementary 

botany teachers (Lindman 1904). 

And though many amateur botanists had no Latin, their knowledge of plants was 

transmitted to the academic world through their scientifically literate colleagues. A 

new system of nomenclature, such as the Standard List, could upset the delicate balance 

between different users and producers of botanical knowledge. The apparent – but 

false! – scientific standard of the List might make people abandon any ambition to 

learn Latin, and the lack of stability of the system might endanger communication even 

more. Loss of poetry entailed loss of feeling, of interest, and thus, of future information. 

The active role of amateurs in the question of Swedish botanical nomenclature 

should not be over-emphasised. In Sweden, the debate over the Standard List was 

dominated by academic botanists, agricultural scientists, and educators. But although 

amateurs had no independent voice, their function as recipients, users, and potential 

producers of botanical knowledge was central to the discussion, which was an extension 

to wider contexts of the anxiety among scientists concerning stability and communication 

across national and professional boundaries. And as we have seen, metropolitan botanists 

and agricultural scientists expressed different ideas about how these boundaries should 

be negotiated (Gieryn 1999). 

The passionate concern for ancient Swedish plant names reflects scientific and 

institutional changes in the years around 1900. With the differentiation of botanical 

research and the expansion of the systems of education, the relations between what 

we might call citizens and guest workers in the republic of science were changing. 

Nomenclatural reform – already proving both troublesome and necessary among 

professional botanists – had ambiguous implications for these relations (McOuat 2001). 

On the one hand, standardised vernacular nomenclature could facilitate communication 

with, and between, school children and students from different school systems and 

different parts of the country. Even some of the opponents of the Standard List admitted 

that a national standard of nomenclature could be useful in some contexts. On the 

other hand, the Standard List posed a threat to time-honoured channels of information.

60 


If Latin was displaced in lower education, the number of people who could communicate 

directly with academic botanists declined. And if the people were deprived of their 

local names – those names which, in the national romantic spirit of the times, were 

understood to forge strong emotional links between Swedish souls and Swedish nature 

– they might lose their interest in botany. Thus, the academic world would be deprived 

of regeneration, of an enthusiastic audience, and of that knowledge which might lie 

hidden in the depths of the popular imagination and which botanists ever since Linnaeus 

had attempted to collect. Vernacular as well as Latin names could work as currency 

across boundaries, but if these names were re-negotiated quickly and one-sidedly, they 

might lose their meaning and capacity to travel through different contexts (Star & 

Griesemer 1989). 

Conclusion 

I have described the struggle over the plant names as the efforts of different 

groups to gain authority through control of botany education, where plant names served 

as a medium for scientific ideas. Crucial to the issue is the diversity of interests 

manifested in the debate: the commercial concerns of horticulturalists, the romantic 

purism of linguists and botanists, the pedagogical anxiety expressed by representatives 

of different branches of botanical research. But behind these conflicts lay the recognition 

that scientific work is not an isolated activity. It was dependent on that same public 

from whose ranks academic botany would be replenished; whose various interests in 

plants supported teachers, writers, and breeders; and whose knowledge of the living 

environment might provide nuggets of interest to the academic botanists. And in this 

delicate system of exchange, plant names were important mediators. This was expressed 

very clearly in 1904 by one of the participants in the name wars: 

The confusion concerning the Swedish plant names which has hitherto prevailed, 

has constituted an abyss between the botanists and the Swedish public, which has 

made practically impossible any sympathetic, informed, collaboration between them; 

circumstances which have been highly detrimental to both parties (Arnell 1904). 

Thirty years later, the Standard List was reprinted, again under the aegis of the 

National Board of Agriculture. A number of its suggestions – even names which were 

almost universally condemned in 1894 – are now regarded as the established and 

correct names of plants. The most important effect of the Standard List was thus that 

it established the idea that standardised vernacular names were necessary. In the late 

20th century a new national checklist was launched, this time sanctioned by the Swedish 

Botanical Society (Karlsson 1982, 1997). Again, its purpose is to facilitate communication 

between people who lack specialised knowledge of either botany or Latin, and it argues 

for the value of the stability and the poetry of Swedish plant names, though at the cost 

of the diversity of regional names and with a slight partiality for binary names (Karlsson 

1983, Fries 1994). In this respect, if not in others, its affiliation with the Standard List 

shines through. And today, there are other similar projects under way: in order to 

stimulate public interest in the study of insects, entomologists are compiling a list of 

Swedish names for all species of scarab beetle found in this country – most of which, 

of course, have never had vernacular names (Forshage 2000). The appeal of the 

perceived popularity, poetry, and stability of vernacular names evidently reaches far 

beyond century-old plant name wars.


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Apollos of Systematic Botany 

Pieter Baas FLS 

Nationaal Herbarium Nederland, P.O. Box 9413, 

2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands 

Introduction: Linnaeus as Apollo 

Hortus Cliffortianus (Linnaeus, 1738) is doubtless the most beautifully executed 

publication by Linnaeus, written during his formative visit to the Netherlands from 

1735–1738 and illustrated by the great artists Ehret and Wandelaar. Its frontispiece is 

full of symbolism and shows Apollo, the god of archery, medicine, prophecy, poetry, 

and music, removing the clouds of darkness and ignorance from above the earth goddess 

Cybele, while treading on the dragon of falsehood. The goddess is offered plants from 

all corners of the earth, while Clifford’s banana tree (Musa cliffortiana), brought into 

fruit by Linnaeus and Clifford’s gardener, hovers in the background. Inspired by a 

serious analysis by Callmer & Gertz (1954), both Wilfred Blunt and William L. Stearn 

believed that the Apollo, handsomely potrayed by the Dutch painter and engraver Jan 

Wandelaar, is none other than the young Carolus Linnaeus himself. Comparisons of 

most portraits of Linnaeus show little resemblance to the engraving, however, but do 

show very little, or even less, resemblance among themselves – making it understandable 

why Linnaeus himself was not very pleased with the likeness of most of his portraits 

(Blunt, 1971). There is, however, a remarkable facial resemblance with the mezzotint 

of Linnaeus in Lapland costume, made after the famous painting by M. Hoffmann, 

who also illustrated the Musa Cliffortiana coffee table book by Linnaeus (1736, 2007) 

in the same year that he was cataloguing Clifford’s immense botanical collections and 

Figure 1. Linnaeus as Apollo. Left: Linnaeus in Lapland costume. Mezzotint after the portrait 

by M. Hoffmann (detail); Right: Apollo in the frontispiece of Hortus Cliffortianus.

64 


library. Especially the nose, eyes, lips, and somewhat androgynous impression of the 

face, are similar (Fig. 1). Whether this is a real indication that the young Linnaeus 

actually “stood” for Wandelaar to have him portrayed in this heroic fashion will remain 

a speculative and rather romantic hypothesis, but for the sake of this paper, let us 

assume he did. Linnaeus was after all not averse to some hyperbole when it comes to 

his own importance, and he certainly earns the title “Apollo of Systematic Botany” 

for all his contributions to the classification, understanding, and naming of the world of 

plants. 

Linnaeus’ sojourn in the Netherlands from 1735 to 1738 launched his scientific 

career and apollonian status. As documented in great detail by an often overlooked 

thesis by Boerman (1953), Linnaeus just followed a general pattern when he travelled 

from Sweden to the Netherlands to further his academic career. Most Swedes before 

him with any academic ambitions in medicine had done so, including his own mentor, 

Rudbeck the younger, because Sweden simply lacked a decent medical faculty well 

into the 18th century, whereas Leiden University, with the world famous Herman 

Boerhaave (1668–1738) and other eminent earlier and contemporary scientists in its 

service, was a Mecca in this respect. Comparatively easy, and above all very affordable 

Doctor’s titles could, moreover, be had at the university of Harderwijk – Boerhaave 

and Rudbeck also had them. 

For Linnaeus, the naturalist, the Low Countries had many additional attractions – 

especially the world class collections of exotic plants and other naturalia – brought 

together as a by-product of the successful spice trade of the Dutch East India Company 

(VOC). From 1602 onwards their apothecaries and surgeons had been instructed to 

“bring along branchlets with their leaves, laid between paper…” (i.e. herbarium 

specimens) of anything that could be of interest not only for the spice trade but for any 

other use in medicine, horticulture, etc., thanks to an instruction drafted by none other 

than that early Apollo of Systematic Botany, Carolus Clusius (1526–1609) – the great 

European traveller and scientist who had crowned his career with the first directorship 

(hortus praefectus) of the Leiden Botanical Garden from 1593–1598 (Baas, 2002). 

Private and university gardens, orangeries, and hothouses in Holland were overflowing 

with exotic plants never before seen at such high latitudes. Great servants of the VOC, 

although self-professed amateurs of botany, such as H.A. van Reede tot Drakestein 

and G.E. Rumphius had been instrumental in writing the first ever large scale tropical 

floras, especially documenting the medicinal potential of the plants of the Malabar 

Coast of India and the Moluccas, respectively. Although the manuscript for Rumphius’ 

Herbarium Amboinensis was still unpublished during Linnaeus’ visit, he would soon 

learn about it, because his Amsterdam host, Johannes Burman, was in the process of 

meticulously editing it for posthumous publication. Herbarium collections had also 

accrued, most notably the large collections from Ceylon, by Paul Hermann. Leonard 

Rauwolf’s herbarium, perhaps the most famous of the 16th century was collected in 

Asia Minor, the Middle East and southern Europe and had been acquired by Leiden 

University. It provided the materials for a Flora Orientalis by Johan Gronovius, 

Linnaeus’ first real sponsor. Holland was, moreover, an international centre for 

publication, with numerous excellent printers and publishers with well-oiled distribution 

systems for marketing their products. For Linnaeus this was of great importance


because in his luggage he carried a number of manuscripts in various stages of 

completion. These could see the light in the Low Countries and spread his fame 

accordingly. 

In summary, our young Apollo could look forward to extending his network of 

learned collagues (an ambition clearly articulated in his notorious interview with the 

Hamburger Anzeiger, given en route from Sweden to the Netherlands), find plenty of 

living and preserved biological collections to study, and publishers galore who might be 

persuaded to print his work. In addition to the compulsory publication of his Doctoral 

thesis, on malaria in the marshy Uppsala region, less than two weeks after his arrival in 

Harderwijk, Linnaeus would publish no less than 10 significant works during his threeyear 

stay in Holland. 

He was very lucky to find two enthusiastic supporters in Leiden only a few 

weeks after his arrival: Johan Gronovius and the Scotsman Isaac Lawson were so 

impressed by his tabular, 14 pp., representation of the order in nature, in his Systema 

Naturae, that they arranged for its immediate publication by the well-known printer 

Theodoor Haak. Systema Naturae, including the sexual system for the classification 

of plants, would impress the entire scientific establishment and develop during Linnaeus’ 

lifetime through 12 editions into a true compendium of the living and mineral world 

covering over 2,300 pages. In the following years Linnaeus’ output in the Netherlands 

was also quite impressive. In 1736 Bibliotheca Botanica, Fundamenta Botanica, 

and Musa Cliffortiana were published; in 1737 Critica Botanica, Flora Lapponica, 

and Genera Plantarum followed, while in 1738, during his last half year in Holland 

Hortus Cliffortianus, and Classes Plantarum saw the light of day. In between all 

this, Linnaeus completed a systematic treatment of the Fishes started by his late friend 

Peter Artedi. Many of these books were not only innovative and full of accurate 

observation, they also foreshadowed all the important works with which Linnaeus was 

to enrich biological science during the rest of his life: Systema Naturae remained the 

“Ariadne’s thread” of all his endeavours, with 12 later editions, as mentioned above; 

Bibliotheca Botanica, Critica Botanica, and Fundamenta Botanica would be 

synthesised and augmented in his immensely influential Philosophia Botanica of 1751 

and Genera Plantarum would go through six editions. When Linnaeus returned to 

Sweden, Holland had offered all that he could have hoped from it: sponsorship, scientific 

reputation, and a bookshelf full of his own publications – but then our Apollo had also 

given his host country and the whole scientific world a great deal in return. 

Apollos of Flora writing 

Linnaeus himself rightfully attached great value to Floras. He wrote no less than 

three floras: Flora Lapponica (1727), Flora Suedica (1745) and Flora Zeylanica 

(1747), and it can be argued that his Species Plantarum (1753) was a first 

comprehensive Flora of the World, although this starting point of botanical nomenclature 

certainly did not fulfill all the criteria that Linnaeus himself included in his definition of 

the products of flora writers. In aphorism 16 of Philosophia Botanica (Linnaeus 

1751) Linnaeus has it that “the compilers of Floras list the vegetables that grow naturally 

in any particular place – systematic, with location, soil quality, time and vernacular 

names”.

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The subsequent history of flora writing is tremendously rich (cf. Frodin 2001), 

and owes much to regional and national Apollos of Botany. Here I will just dwell on 

some selected Apollos of Malesian Botany. As in other tropical regions, the first 

incentives for botanical stock taking in the Linnaean sense came from the colonial 

powers, in this case Great Britain and The Netherlands. Van Steenis (1979) has 

documented the stumbling and often ill-fated beginnings of botanical exploration in the 

Malesia (the botanical province including the nation states of Indonesia, Malaysia, the 

Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, and East Timor): late 18th and 

early 19th century attempts to even start on floras of Java and Peninsular Malaysia 

were seriously delayed. Linnaeus’ own unfaithful disciple, Solander, never published 

his observations on 338 species from Java made in 1770 – his manuscript is still shelved 

in the British Museum; Thomas Horsfield’s account of Javanese plants had to wait for 

about 40 years until it was finally published decades later by Bennet & Brown (1838– 

1852). C.L. Blume (1796–1862), a great botanist of Apollonian ambition started on a 

beautiful Flora Javae project, as well as the serial publication Rumphia to contain 

monographic studies of the Flora and Vegetation of the Dutch Indies, but did not come 

even close to completion of a Flora of Java. 

C.G.G.J. (Kees) van Steenis (1901–1986) certainly had the apollonian vision, drive, 

and perseverence when he founded the immense Flora Malesiana Project in the 

forties of the last century. This was the first scientific inventory of all flowering plants 

and ferns of a biogeographically delimited region, based on a critical taxonomy (requiring 

semi-monographic studies of all genera and families), with information on ecology, 

uses, anatomy, chemistry and vernacular names added. Van Steenis was not only a 

very hard working botanist, he was also a talented organiser and for the task of writing 

Flora Malesiana, at the time estimated to contain 25,000 species of higher plants, he 

had engaged the support of a small team of full time collaborators (later incorporated 

into the Rijksherbarium staff in Leiden) and a network of numerous volunteer specialists 

from all over the world. The original work plan reckoned that 25 years would be 

enough to complete the task. It must have been a great disappointment for him that, 

towards the end of his life, about 40 years into the project, only about 10% of the flora 

had been published and that there was a slowing down in contributions from his own 

staff and international network of volunteers. Later attempts by his successors at 

Leiden and in the region itself, through the Flora Malesiana Foundation, to revitalise 

this megaproject have only partly been successful, and in its current format there is no 

prospect of finishing the entire flora, now estimated to include 40,000 species of flowering 

plants and ferns, within the next 100 years. In my opinion this does not mean that Van 

Steenis does not deserve to be ranked as a great Apollo of Systematic Botany. His 

personal contributions on the biogeography, vegetation science and ecology of the 

Malesian lowland and mountain floras alone earn him this title, but it illustrates a very 

general problem that most flora projects covering over 15,000 species seem to have 

been facing in the tropics. Flora projects covering more species are simply too large 

for single individuals, or even for institutions or consortia, to oversee, and too longlasting 

to maintain momentum and funding. Flora Malesiana (like Flora Neoptropica 

and the various supranational Floras of Tropical Africa) moreover faces the problem 

that it covers several nation states, which always complicates funding and long-term


cooperation. Therefore, the scientifically founded ideal of writing large supranational, 

critical (!) floras seems to remain utopian for the time being. For the Malesian region 

there are two encouraging and inspiring alternatives, involving one historical and one 

modern Apollo of Systematic Botany and their teams of contributing taxonomists. In 

Figure 2. Apollos of Malesian Botany. Top left: C.L. Blume; Bottom left: C.G.G.J. (Kees) van 

Steenis and his wife Rietje van Steenis-Kruseman; Top right: J.D. Hooker; 

Bottom right: E. Soepadmo.

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the 19th century, Peninsular Malaysia belonged to British India, and Joseph D. Hooker´s 

Flora of British India, covering about 14,000 species, was published by the then 

Director of Kew and his staff in precisely 25 years from 1872–1897. The very rich 

Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak, the Malaysian parts of Borneo, are currently the 

subject of a critical flora project under the inspiring leadership of E. Soepadmo. In his 

earlier career Soepadmo contributed the Fagaceae and Ulmaceae treatments to Flora 

Malesiana, and all signs are positive that this 10,000 tree species tree flora of North 

Borneo will be completed well within 25 years (Soepadmo et al. 1996–2007), and a 

new comprehensive flora of Peninsular Malaysia has now been embarked on using the 

same successful formula. Although volunteer or hired taxonomists from the former 

colonial powers still contribute significantly to these national floras, their success and 

momentum owes much to the fact that they are entirely driven as projects of great 

national interest to the nation state of Malaysia. 

From the above it seems totally unrealistic to discuss the Flora of the World as a 

viable proposition. Nevertheless that is precisely what we have been discussing since 

the initiative of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, a number of major herbaria and 

natural history museums together called for a new Species Plantarum project in 1990, 

soon to be followed by what seemed a more realistic Global Plant Checklist (under the 

auspices of the specially founded (in 1991) International Organisation of Plant 

Information, IOPI) and the launching of the first volumes of Species Planarum: Flora 

of the World (Orchard, 1990). Despite all the best intentions the World Flora and 

related projects have not come very far about 15 years after their original inception. 

The Global Plant checklist seems to be an exception thanks to Global Plant Conservation 

Strategy of the Convention of Biological Diversity, that has targeted the checklist as an 

urgent tool to underpin the conservation goal of the Convention to stop further species 

loss by 2010 (see http://www.plantlife.org.uk/international/plantlife-policiesstrategies-gspc.html). 

Here one could be cynical, were it not that in the years that 

institutional support for the global plant species checklist was dismal, one single-minded 

Apollo of Checklist Botany, Rafaël Govaerts, industriously continued to contribute to a 

world checklist single-handedly (e.g. Govaerts 1996). On a plant genus basis one must 

also hail the encyclopedic successes of J.C. Willis and Airy Shaw in producing subsequent 

editions of Willis’ Dictionary of Flowering Plants and Ferns (1897–1973), continued as 

the much more encompassing, and truly apollonian Plant-Book by David J. Mabberley 

(1987, 1998, 2008). 

Nowadays of course we all cherish the hope that, through information technology 

and web-based international taxonomic cooperation, the completion of a Flora of the 

World is a realistic possibility. DNA-barcoding could help circumvent the tedium of 

constructing poorly functioning dichotomous, synoptic or interactive computer-assisted 

identification keys. I am convinced that all these dreams can only aspire to the much 

required scientific standard if revisionary taxonomy and the delimitation of new species 

– which is absolutely needed to make IT applications and Barcoding work – is given 

much more in the way of “contact hours” between the taxonomists and their plants in 

the field and in the herbarium. A good alpha taxonomist can deal with about 500–1,000 

species in a life time if he or she works (semi-) monographically on a limited number of 

families and revisits their taxonomy from time to time throughout his career. The work


of Sir Ghillean Prance comes to mind; he combined and combines a very rich career in 

administration, conservation and ethnobotany with world class taxonomic contributions 

on Chrysobalanaceae and Lecythidaceae and Proteaceae. Of the former family he 

even contributed a definitive treatment for the abortive Flora of the World series (Prance 

& Sothers, 2003). Other very industrious taxonomists such as Herman Sleumer 

(Ericaceae, Flacouriaceae s.l., Icacinaceae, Myrsinaceae) and Bernard Verdcourt 

(multiple families, especially from Tropical Africa) come to mind. With the estimates 

for total numbers of Flowering Plants and Ferns having risen from about 8,000 in 

Linnaeus’ Species Plantarum to 240,000–320,000 today the world would need not 

more than 600 active taxonomists – all true Apollos of Botany – and the total world 

flora could be critically revised every 40–50 years. 

From this perspective there would be no shortage of taxonomists: the International 

Association of Plant Taxonomists alone numbers well over 1,500 members, and many 

current taxonomists are not even IAPT members (cf. staff listings in Index 

Herbarorium). To make an army of 600 taxonomists all over the world work together 

in a complementary as well as synergistic fashion would require the vision and authority 

of a new Linnaeus indeed! Yet this is desperately needed, because all great schemes 

need a sound alpha-taxonomy as the underpinning basis: from the resolution of the 

Tree of Life down to its terminal twigs, the Encyclopedia of Life, the use of DNA 

Barcoding in identification, and for better implementation of Conservation Strategies, 

to the use of wild relatives in genetic improvement of cultivars. One should shout it 

from the roof-tops as a paraphrase of the American election campaign: It´s the 

Taxonomy Stupid! 

Apollos of the Natural System 

Although Linnaeus’ sexual system of plant classification was highly artificial, the 

quest by Linnaeus for a natural system was, in my opinion, very real, never mind that 

it was in his time constrained by a solid creationist framework. Aphorisms in Philosophia 

Botanica (1751) that “Nature does not make leaps”, that “the true beginning and end 

of botany is the natural system”, and that the system of classification is “Ariadne’s 

thread of botany” all testify to this. Moreover, Linnaeus himself did recognise that 

apart from sexual organs all other plant attributes should be taken into account to 

arrive at a natural system. Linnaeus’ recognition that all species descend from the 

sexual union of a male and female parent was again a prerequisite for that later Apollo 

of Evolutionary Biology, Charles Darwin, to recognise the patterns of sexual selection. 

From the first publication of Systema Naturae in 1735 to the latest update of that 

tremendously useful APG website maintained by Peter Stevens there is no shortage of 

Apollos of Systematic Botany who have proposed numerous improvements to the 

classification of flowering plants and ferns. I shall not name them here, but limit myself 

to the contributions of systematic plant anatomy to these classifications. I owe this to 

my own specialisation, but I also think it is necessary to recognise that the role of 

attributes from vegetative anatomy as phylogenetic and diagnostic markers has not 

always received the limelight it deserves. 

Although all microscopists since Malpighi, Grew and Van Leeuwenhoek have 

contributed to comparative and thus systematic plant anatomy, the true founder and

70 


Figure 3. Apollos of Systematic Plant Anatomy. Top left: L. Radlekofer; 

Top right: H.H. Solereder; Bottom left: C.R. Metcalfe and his wife Gwen; 

Bottom right: I.W. Bailey. (The first three by courtesy of the Hunt Library). 

Apollo of systematic plant anatomy was Ludwig Radlkofer (1829–1927). As 

monographer of the tropical woody family of the Sapindaceae he consistently included 

especially leaf anatomical features in his descriptions and generic and species 

delimitation. In 1883 he gave an historical address to the Royal Academy of Bavaria in 

which he unfolded his vision for systematic botany, with the famous predication that 

“the next hundred years belong to the anatomical method”. His dedication to that 

anatomical method is apparent from a personal letter dated 2 September 1920, in the 

archives of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands: while offering condolences to 

Mrs. Koorders in Bogor with the demise of her botanist husband, he requests her to


take a thumb-nail size leaf sample from a certain herbarium specimen so that he can 

verify its identity. His impact on systematic botany would be especially important through 

his pupil Hans Solereder (1869–1920) who wrote the encyclopedic “Systematische 

Anatomie der Dikotyledonen” (1899 & 1906) being a compilation and synthesis of all 

that was known on vegetative plant anatomy to date, and much of the information 

coming from PhD theses from the Radlkofer/Solereder school. An additional series on 

the “Systematische Anatomie der Monokotyledonen” was far advanced before 

Solereder’s untimely death. Much of the anatomical information was assimilated in 

Engler & Prantl’s second edition of the Natuerliche Pflanzenfamilien. 

The translation at Kew of Solereder’s magnum opus by L.A. Boodle and F.E. 

Fritsch heralded the era of systematic anatomy in the English speaking world. It was 

Charles Russel Metcalfe (1904–1991) who, as a young Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory 

in Kew, approached Laurence Chalk, wood anatomist at the Imperial Forestry Institute 

in Oxford, in the 1930s to embark on a completely updated and expanded version, 

resulting in the two-volume bible “Anatomy of the Dicotyledons” first published in 

1950. With true Apollonian drive Metcalfe continued with a series on the Anatomy of 

Monocotyledons, and revisited the Dicots with a much expanded second edition from 

1979 onwards. Both the Monocot Series and the second Edition Series of the “Anatomy 

of the Dicotyledons” are still being continued. Anatomy of the Dicotyledons has 

been intensively data-mined for wood anatomical databases (cf. http:// 

insidewood.lib.ncsu.edu) and by great pre-APG systematists like Dahlgren, Thorne, 

Cronquist and Takhtajan, and post-APG there has been recognition by DNA systematists 

that anatomical patterns contain significant phylogenetic signals, especially at higher 

taxonomic levels, supporting many of the “unexpected” outcomes of the phylogenetic 

DNA analyses. 

My final Apollo, Irving Widmore Bailey (1884–1967) from Harvard added great 

insight into anatomical diversity by recognising functional, developmental, and 

evolutionary patterns (Bailey & Tupper, 1918; Bailey, 1954). As a consummate 

microscopist he ranks easily as the most innovative plant anatomist of the 20th century, 

correctly modelling the ultrastructure of the woody cell wall as well as uncovering the 

major evolutionary trends in xylem anatomy and fathoming the powerful phylogenetic 

signals contained in vestured pits. Current ecophyletic wood anatomy research by 

authors like Sherwin Carlquist, Pieter Baas, Steven Jansen, Frederic Lens and Elisabeth 

Wheeler gratefully builds on the foundations laid by this great Apollo of comparative 

plant anatomy. 

Epilogue 

The use of one metaphoric Apollo from a 1738 frontispiece to revisit some aspects 

of the history of systematic botany carries the danger of turning the subject into a 

caricature. Above all I have tried to illustrate how some individuals with great vision, 

drive and talent developed our subject into the modern discipline it is today. Individualism 

often going hand in hand with a large and self-confident ego, is, however, only one side 

of the coin: most of the selected Apollo’s were also great team workers who nurtured 

large networks of colleagues and disciples – Linnaeus himself was a good example of 

this. The great breakthroughs in DNA phylogeny and taxonomy from the early ’90s

72 


onwards were only possible thanks to the excellent team spirit of all the Apollos united 

in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG 1998). So let us hope for a future chorus of 

numerous Apollos both in alpha taxonomy and phylogenomic systematics to further our 

discipline! 

References 

(selected references only, excluding all the cited books by Linnaeus) 

APG. 1998. An ordinal classification for the families of flowering plants. Annals of the Missouri 

Botanical Garden 85: 531–553. 

Baas, P. 2002. De VOC in Flora’s Lusthoven. pp.124–137 in L. Blussé & I. Ooms (eds), Kennis 

en Compagnie. Uitgeverij Balans, Amsterdam, 191 pp. 

Bailey, I.W. 1954. Contributions to Plant Anatomy. Chronica Botanica 15. 

Bailey, I.W. & W.W.Tupper. 1918. Size variation in tracheary cells I. A comparison between the 

secondary xylems of vascular cryptogams, gymnosperms and angiosperms. Proc. Amer. 

Acad. Arts & Sci. 54: 149–204. 

Bennet, J.J. & R. Brown 1838–1852. Plantae javanicae rariores, quas in insula Java, annis 

1802-1818, legit en investigavit Thomas Horsfield, 258 pp., 50 plates. 

Blume C.L. 1828–1858. Flora Javae. 

Blunt, W. 1971. The Compleat Naturalist – a life of Linnaeus. Collins, London, 256 pp. 

Boerman, A.J. 1953. Carolus Linnaeus als middelaar tussen Zweden en Nederland. PhD thesis, 

Utrecht, 208 + xxii pp. 

Callmer, C. & O. Gertz. 1954. Om illustroneman till Hortus Cliffortianus. Svenska Linné-Sälsk. 

Arsskr. 36: 81–88. 

Frodin, D.G. 2001. Guide to Standard Floras of the World. Cambridge University Press, 1124 pp. 

Govaerts, R.H.A. 1996. World Checklist of Seed Plants. Antwerp, 492 pp. 

Hooker, J.D. 1872-1897. Flora of British India, 7 volumes 

Mabberley, D.J. 1987, 1998, 2008. The Plant-book. Cambridge University Press. Eds. 1–3. 

Metcalfe, C.R. & L. Chalk. 1950. Anatomy of the Dicotyledons, 2 volumes. Clarendon Press, 

1500 pp. 

Orchard, A. 1999. Species Plantarum: Flora of the World. Introduction to the Series. 91 pp. 

Prance, G.T. & A. Sothers. 2003. Chrysoblanaceae 1 & 2. Species Plantarum: Flora of the World 

Parts 9 & 10. 

Radlekofer, L. 1883. Ueber die Methoden in der botanische Systematik, insbesondere die 

Anatomische Methode. Festrede zur Vorfeier des Allerhöchsten Geburts- und Namensfestes 

Seiner Majestäts de Königs Ludwig II. Verlag der k.b. Akademie, München. 

Soepadmo, E. and co-workers (eds). 1996–2006. Tree Flora of Sabah and Sarawak. Vols. 1–6. 

Solereder, H. H. 1899 and 1906. Systematische Anatomie der Dikotyledonen (& 

Ergänzungsband). 

Van Steenis, C.G.G.J. 1979. The Rijksherbarium and its contribution to the knowledge of the 

tropical Asiatic Flora. Blumea 25: 57–77. 

Willis, J.C. 1897-1973. A Dictionary of Flowering Plants and Ferns. Edition 1–8. Cambridge 

University Press.

THE LINNAEAN LEGACY: THREE HUNDRED YEARS AFTER HIS BIRTH 73 



Part 2: 

Botanical Art in the Age of Linnaeus 

Tab. 12 from Linnaeus’ Flora Lapponica (1737): Fig. 4 is Linnaea borealis.

74 



Linnaeus’ use of illustrations 

in his naming of plants 

Charlie Jarvis, HonFLS 

Department of Botany, Natural History Museum, 

Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K. 

It is an interesting fact that Linnaeus’ own, numerous publications feature very 

few original illustrations, yet he was at the same time happy to include many references 

to the illustrations of other authors, particularly in his compilatory works such as Species 

Plantarum. If he felt they were of value, why didn’t he arrange for more plants to be 

illustrated in his own articles, dissertations and books? Might it have been purely a 

question of cost (only in his later years did Linnaeus become financially comfortable) 

or was the issue more complex? 

Today taxonomists are often indebted to the illustrators of the 17th and 18th 

centuries, particularly in connection with scientific names coined before about 1800. 

The development of the type method, in which the application of a scientific name is 

governed by the identity of a reference (or “type”) specimen or illustration, means that 

many early names have to be interpreted by early illustrations. In compiling my recent 

book Order out of Chaos (2007), the existence of so many drawings and illustrations, 

in addition to pressed herbarium specimens, has often proved valuable in the 

interpretation of Linnaeus’ intentions. 

Linnaeus first made an impact on the publishing scene in the Netherlands where 

he arrived in 1735 with a number of manuscripts which he hoped to have published 

there. These included his ground-breaking Systema Naturae (1735), his first 

classification of the natural world which included his controversial division of the plants 

by the number and arrangement of their floral parts – his so-called “sexual system”. 

This was unillustrated, and his 1736 book, Fundamenta Botanica, contained only a 

few plates illustrating different leaf and inflorescence forms. 

His account of the flora of Lapland, however, published as Flora Lapponica in 

1737 and based on his travels there during 1732, did contain 12 copperplates depicting 

some of the more interesting plants he had encountered. 

Altogether more lavish in the scale and quality of the accompanying illustrations 

are those featured in two works prepared by Linnaeus while he was in the employment 

of George Clifford, an Anglo-Dutch banker. Clifford’s extensive estate, the Hartekamp, 

near Haarlem, boasted huge gardens with several hothouses, where Linnaeus and 

Clifford’s gardener, Dietrich Nietzel, managed to coax a banana to flower and fruit, an 

occurrence so rare that a slim publication, Musa Cliffortiana, accompanied by two 

copperplates, was produced in 1736 to commemorate it. 

A much larger work, Hortus Cliffortianus, which accounted for all the plants 

grown at the Hartekamp, appeared in 1738 and was accompanied by 36 large 

copperplates that Clifford commissioned from Georg Dionysius Ehret and Jan

76 


Wandelaar. It seems likely that the choice of their format and illustrated content was 

made by Clifford rather than Linnaeus. 

After his return to Sweden, Linnaeus published numerous books and articles, as 

well as hundreds of dissertations which he prepared for his many students to defend 

(as was normal in the Swedish university system at the time). Linnaeus’ major work, 

Species Plantarum (1753), was unillustrated, as were later editions of the Systema 

Naturae and most of the other works in which significant numbers of species were 

given new binomial names. 

However, illustrations, though scarce, do make an occasional appearance, for 

example with an engraving, in a 1741 article entitled “Lobelia”, of the plant he later 

named Lobelia inflata L. (Fig. 1). 

Some clues to Linnaeus’ attitude to illustrations can be found in some of his early 

works. In 1737, in the introduction to his Genera Plantarum, Linnaeus had given vent 

to his strong feelings on the subject: 

Figure 1. Engraving, from an article in Acta Societas Regia Scientiarum 

Upsaliensis 1741: 23–26, of the plant Linnaeus later named Lobelia inflata L. 

(© Natural History Museum, London)


I do not recommend drawings…for determining genera – in fact, I absolutely reject 

them, although I confess they are of great importance to boys and those who have 

more brain-pan than brain; I confess that they convey something to the unlearned. 

Before the use of letters came to be known by mortals, wherever the sound of the 

mouth could not be heard, everything had to be expressed by pictures. But as soon 

as letters were invented, there was an easier and surer way to communicate ideas by 

writing. So too in Botany, figures afforded great assistance before the letters were 

discovered. If one wants to use or review a generic character in some book, one 

cannot always easily paint, engrave, print and publish a picture; however it is easy 

with description. We will therefore try to express by words all marks just as clearly – 

if not more clearly – as others with their splendid drawings. 

In 1751, Linnaeus published Philosophia Botanica, essentially a compilation of 

his lectures on botany. Linnaeus was a great teacher, and this work, in its recent 2003 

translation by Stephen Freer, provides what the Linnaean scholar Paul Cox characterises 

as “an opportunity to imagine what it might have been like to sit in that old Uppsala 

lecture hall, and to hear...Carl Linnaeus, the greatest student of plants to ever grace 

this earth, discuss with excitement and enthusiasm his view of plants”. Philosophia 

Botanica was published two years before Linnaeus’ most famous botanical work, 

Species Plantarum, in which he for the first time introduced the consistent use of 

binomial nomenclature. As such, the earlier work gives an insight into the development 

of Linnaeus’ botanical thought prior to 1753, and it contains some interesting observations 

on illustrations. 

In his description of the Botanical Library, Linnaeus listed chronologically 158 of 

the principal botanical authors (“Phytologists”), grouping them into a number of categories. 

These included the “Fathers” (starting with the Greeks, and Hippocrates) who established 

the first rudiments of botany, the “Describers” (such as John Ray), the “Travellers” 

(such as Tournefort and Kaempfer), the “Systematists” who had arranged the plants 

in particular ranks, and the “Nomenclators” (who had named plants). 

The “Illustrators” were also recognised here, as those who “have represented 

the figures of vegetables in pictures”. Linnaeus noted that this required “a botanist, a 

draughtsman, and an engraver”, and that “All parts should be recorded in their natural 

position and size, including the most minute parts of the fruit-body”. The works of 

Dillenius, Colonna and Ehret are deemed “outstanding”, those of Rheede, Sloane and 

Dillenius “valuable”, and another eight “poor”. 

There is perhaps a simple reason for the lack of illustrations in Linnaeus’ own 

works. The historian, Karen Reeds, for example, suggests (Interdiscipl. Sci. Rev. 29: 

248-258. 2004) that Linnaeus’ own lack of skill at drawing may have been a significant 

factor. While some of his drawings can be found in the journals of his Swedish expeditions 

(notably to Lapland in 1734, and to Öland and Gotland in 1741), they have not been 

rated highly by later observers. It is clear that the Swede was not a natural artist, and 

Reeds suggests that his vehement rejection of “others with their splendid drawings” 

may not have been unconnected to his inability to produce them himself. Given his own 

modest financial circumstances, he was ill-positioned to pay an artist instead, and the 

need for an engraver would have added to the expense.

78 


Figure 2. A plate from the first volume of Dillenius’ Hortus Elthamensis (t. 121, f. 147. 

1732), the lectotype of Cassine maurocenia L. (= Maurocenia frangula Mill.) 

(© Natural History Museum, London) 

Linnaeus though, was also a pragmatist, and when compiling his botanical magnum 

opus, Species Plantarum (1753), he stated in the Preface that, for European plants, 

he was including only a brief synonymy, “with an outstanding illustrator”, but “for 

Exotics, however, several [synonyms], because they are more difficult and less familiar”. 

His own lack of artistic skill, however, did not prevent him from holding firm 

views about the contrasting botanical value of many other authors’ illustrated works. 

Three men were identified by him in Philosophia Botanica as “Outstanding” – Dillenius, 

Colonna and Ehret.


John Jacob Dillenius (1684–1747) 

The Hortus Elthamensis of John Jacob Dillenius, published in 1732, was an 

account of the plants growing at James Sherard’s garden in Eltham, near London, and 

was accompanied by 324 large, hand-coloured copperplates which were much cited 

by Linnaeus (Fig. 2). A Chair of Botany had been endowed at Oxford for Dillenius by 

the wealthy English botanist, William Sherard (the elder brother of James). The Hortus 

Elthamensis included descriptions and drawings of many horticulturally-interesting 

plants. 

Dillenius, a great authority on cryptogamic plants, also published Historia 

Muscorum (1741) and, from these two works, Dillenius is the author whose illustrations 

currently contribute the greatest number of figures as Linnaean types, appropriately 

so, given Linnaeus’ high regard for Dillenius’ work. 

Fabio Colonna (1567–1650) 

Linnaeus’ second “outstanding” illustrated author was the rather earlier Italian, 

Fabio Colonna (or Columna). In two books published in 1606 and 1616, Colonna’s 

accounts of southern Italian (and some eastern Mediterranean) plants were accompanied 

by 246 copperplates, often depicting more than one species. They provided information 

on many plants unfamiliar to Linnaeus, and a number of them provide types for Linnaean 

names, including that of Allium 

chamaemoly L. (Fig. 3). While 

Colonna’s work is perhaps less 

well-known, his attention to detail, 

and the agreement with Linnaeus’ 

criteria of the parts of the plant 

being “recorded in their natural 

position and size, including the most 

minute parts of the fruit-body” 

make Linnaeus’ enthusiasm 

understandable. 

Figure 3. Engraving from Fabio 

Colonna’s Minus cognitarum 

stirpium aliquot...Ekphrasis: 326. 

1606, the lectotype of Allium 

chamaemoly L. (© Natural History 

Museum, London)

80 


Georg Dionysius Ehret (1710–1770) 

Ehret was the third illustrator whose work Linnaeus regarded as “outstanding”, 

and whose publications he cited extensively in his own books. However, as Annika 

Erikson Browne deals with him in detail elsewhere in this publication, he will not be 

discussed further here. 

Plants from the Tropics 

The quality, and information content of these illustrations, varied wildly, and their 

usefulness to Linnaeus doubtless also depended on whether there was complementary 

information available. Exploration of the globe was still at a comparatively early stage, 

and although something was known of many parts of Europe, the plants of more remote 

areas were usually little known. Consequently, the publications of others, particularly 

where they dealt with the plants of rarely visited places, were studied with great interest 

by Linnaeus. 

It is no great surprise, therefore, to find that many illustrations (Plumier 1697) 

published by the French monk Charles Plumier (who collected extensively in Haiti and 

Martinique during three trips between 1689 and 1697, are types for species from the 

Antilles that were named by Linnaeus in 1753, including Polypodium reticulatum L. 

(Thelypteris reticulata (L.) Proctor), because these illustrations and descriptions usually 

provided the only information that was available. Long after Plumier’s death, Linnaeus’ 

Dutch friend Johannes Burman assembled several hundred tracings of previously 

unpublished Plumier drawings. While preparing them for subsequent (1755–1760) 

publication, he sent proof copies to Linnaeus who, after appropriate consideration, 

pasted them on to the walls of his study at his country estate at Hammarby where they 

can still be seen today. 

Linnaeus had a copy of Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (1705), by 

that remarkable Dutch painter, Maria Sibylla Merian, a lavishly illustrated work that 

also portrayed the food plants of the insects that were the primary focus of the book. 

In 1753, this was pretty well the only information on Surinam plants available to Linnaeus 

– and he accordingly based a number of species on her illustrations, including Spondias 

mombin L. (Fig. 4). 

Similarly, Linnaeus greatly valued the works of an author such as Hendrik Adriaan 

Rheede tot Draackenstein, whose 12-volume illustrated account of plants from the 

Malabar coast of India, Hortus Malabaricus, published between 1678 and 1693, proved 

invaluable to him. The work contained 794 large engravings of Indian plants, and included 

not only descriptions but a wealth of ethnobotanical information that is now unavailable 

from any other source, for the local works Rheede cited have since disappeared. In 

addition to very good descriptions, the entries contain a record of vernacular plant 

names in a variety of European and native languages. As a result, although the drawings 

contain errors, and often lack the details necessary to a correct identification, it has 

been possible for modern scholars to identify confidently all but one of his plants. 

Linnaeus adopted 254 names from the Hortus Malabaricus in the first edition 

of his Species Plantarum. Some well-known examples of names derived from Rheede 

include Carica papaya L. (epithet derived from Rheede’s “Papajamaram”), Mangifera 

indica L. (Rheede cited “mango” as the name for the fruit), and the star-fruit Averrhoa


Figure 4. Plate from Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium: 

t. 13. 1705, the lectotype of Spondias mombin L. (© Linnean Society of London) 

carambola L. (epithet derived from Rheede’s “Carambolas”). Although Rheede sent 

plant material to Amsterdam, he seems to have kept no herbarium specimens, so in 

each case where Linnaeus used the Hortus Malabaricus as his source, it is the 

illustration in that work, rather than a herbarium specimen, that is now the type of the 

name.

82 


Another influential publication on plants from the Old World tropics was that of 

Georg Eberhard Rumf (often known as Rumphius), based on plants from the island of 

Ambon in Indonesia. The Herbarium Amboinense was not published until 40 years 

after its author’s death, a consortium of Dutch publishers issuing it in six volumes, 

between 1741 and 1750. It has subsequently been recognised as the first major account 

of Malaysian plants, and many botanists have used its descriptions to determine specific 

names. But bearing in mind that most of the 695 illustrations were undertaken after the 

author became blind and could no longer authenticate them, the possibilities for error 

are enormous. 

Linnaeus evidently saw the Herbarium Amboinense in the late stages of 

producing his manuscript of Species Plantarum, and only 19 of Rumphius’ accounts 

are referred to there. However, he made a more detailed study of them in a later 

dissertation, Herbarium Amboinense (1754), and around 100 of Rumphius’ plates 

serve as types for Linnaean names, including the one that depicts Cucumis anguinus 

L. (= Trichosanthes cucumerina L.) (Fig. 5). 

Figure 5. The type 

illustration of Cucumis 

anguinus L. 

(= Trichosanthes 

cucumerina L.) from 

Rumphius’ Herbarium 

Amboinense 5: t. 148. 1747. 

(© Natural History 

Museum, London)


Temperate Floras 

Linnaeus frequently noted species as recorded from Siberia, and information on 

these plants came partly from specimens he had obtained clandestinely from Russia, 

but chiefly from the first two volumes of Johann Georg Gmelin’s Flora Sibirica, a 

product of Gmelin’s participation in the Second Kamchatka Expedition. 

Although many South African plants had already entered cultivation in Europe by 

the middle of the 18th century, Linnaeus still relied on the publications of, chiefly Dutch, 

authors such as Jan Commelin for information about many of them – including Antholyza 

ringens L. (now Babiana ringens (L.) Ker-Gawl.), and also his great friend Johannes 

Burman, whose Rariorum Africanum Plantarum of 1738–1739 contained many fine 

descriptions and illustrations, including Arctopus echinatus L. (a member of the 

Apiaceae). 

While illustrations can frequently show the features that allow a confident 

identification to be made, this is not always the case. Fortunately, some illustrated 

works, such as those of Sloane, can be associated with herbarium material. Sloane’s 

Jamaican collections are unusual in that his artist, Everhard Kickius, prepared his 

drawings directly from Sloane’s dried specimens, so the published engravings (in Sloane’s 

A voyage to the islands Madeira... and Jamaica, 1707; 1725) correspond very 

precisely with the specimens upon which they were based, and uncertainties of identity 

of the illustrations can often be resolved by reference to the specimens. 

However, there can undoubtedly be difficulties where names are evidently based 

solely on descriptions and illustrations that are either so poor that they fail to distinguish 

between a number of similar taxa, or such a mixture of elements that it can be difficult 

to decide to which element the name should apply. 

For example, Engelbert Kaempfer’s early account of Japanese plants 

(Amoenitatum Exoticarum, 1712) contained relatively few illustrations, but most were 

cited by Linnaeus, and almost all of them have been designated as types for their 

corresponding Linnaean binomials. One of these is the type of Epidendrum domesticum 

L., a name which has been associated with the orchid genus Vanilla. However, closer 

study of Kaempfer’s plate suggests that it is a composite of an orchid, and a member 

of the Iridaceae, and Garay (Harvard Pap. Bot. 2: 49. 1997) recently designated the 

Iridaceous part of the plate as the lectotype, with the result that the name no longer 

applies to an orchid but, in this case happily, becomes a synonym of the species known 

as Belamcanda chinensis (L.) DC. 

Linnaeus relied on illustrations perhaps more than he was aware himself, and 

taxonomists today striving to stabilise 18th-century plant nomenclature certainly find 

historical illustrations of tremendous value. It is interesting that, despite his antipathy to 

them, a quarter of the scientific names he described are now nomenclaturally bound to 

illustrations that he cited, rather than his beloved herbarium specimens. 

Illustrations, such as Commelin’s plate of Chironia frutescens L. (Fig. 6), have 

an important role to play as types because it is not uncommon to find that it is the 

illustrations, rather than the specimens, that correspond with what has become the 

general usage of the name, and that nomenclatural stability is, in fact, better served by 

adopting an illustration, rather than a specimen, as the type. Although many of the

84 


Figure 6. Caspar Commelin’s plate from his Hort. med. Amstelaed. Pl. Rar.: 

t. 8. 1706 is the lectotype of Chironia frutescens L. (= Orphium frutescens (L.) 

E. Mey.) (© Natural History Museum, London) 

publications used by Linnaeus would have been produced in small numbers, and were 

not exactly widely available to other scientists trying to interpret Linnaeus’ names, they 

were nevertheless a great deal more accessible than were the specimens in Linnaeus’ 

own herbarium, and later authors understandably placed weight on illustrations they 

could see, rather than specimens that were inaccessible. 

Linnaeus could not have foreseen the modern nomenclatural importance of 

illustrations for his own binomials because he would not have recognised the type 

method. But it is in interpreting and analysing his names that the illustrations he consulted 

come into their own, and have proved an immensely valuable resource for Linnaean 

scholars.


Georg Dionysius Ehret: A Glimpse into the 

Golden Age of Botany 

Annika Erikson Browne FLS 

Acting Picture Library Curator, Lindley Library, 

Royal Horticultural Society, 80 Vincent Square, London SW1P 2PE, U.K. 

Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708–1770) was an 18th century botanical artist of great 

importance, as indicated by his self-portrait (Fig. 1), the first included in a botanical 

publication of an artist since Fuchs. According to Stearn, Ehret inaugurated the ‘Golden 

Age of Botanical Art’. He “combined botanical exactitude with great beauty of design”, 

and some scholars such as Calmann believe his work has never been surpassed. Ehret 

illustrated many exotic plants, particularly American varieties. Quite a few of these 

were introduced and named in the pre-Linnaean style and so have become particularly 

important for later botanists attempting to find out exactly which plants were referred 

to by the older names. Ehret was first to publish a graphic display of Linnaeus’ sexual 

system. Ehret’s illustrations were often cited by Linnaeus, making them highly significant 

for the typification of many Linnaean specific names. 

Figure 1. Ehret’s self portrait. 

(Credit: RHS, Lindley Library) 

Ehret was not particularly interested in landscape gardens; he was however excited 

by the results of hothouse culture, which must have seemed astounding to a German

86 


artist, gardener and botanist of that period. Naturally, his enthusiasm may have been 

bolstered by the impressive financial outlay of keen aristocrats for the collection and 

growth of exotics; providing Ehret with a nice niche in beautifully capturing them and 

teaching nobility such as the Duchess of Portland’s daughters how to study and draw 

flora; but his passion for the observation of vegetation from far-flung places is clear. 

Ehret enjoyed patronage from all over Europe, including Christoph Jakob Trew 

(Fig. 2) in his native Germany, the Margrave Karl Wilhelm III of Baden-Durlach, 

Louis XV, George Clifford of Hartekamp, Sir Hans Sloane, Patrick Browne and John 

Fothergill. In his memoirs, composed at the age of 50 to support his membership 

application to the prestigious Imperial German Academy of Naturalists, the Leopoldina 

in Schweinfurt, he writes that he was born in Heidelberg in 1708. His father, a gardener, 

introduced him to the joys of drawing plants, but sadly died in Ehret’s youth. 

Ehret was taken out of school early and thrust into a gardener’s apprenticeship 

with his uncle in Bessungen, near Darmstadt, where he continued to draw throughout 

the three years of “slavery”. His skills improved, aided by his cousin who was the first 

to purchase his drawings, and provided Ehret with a studio of sorts. Ehret was later 

recommended by his cousin to Joachim Sievert, gardener to the Margrave at Karlsruhe. 

The Margrave wished to have paintings produced of his hyacinths, and August Wilhelm 

Sievert came to Karlsruhe. 

Ehret bemoans the fact that a painter of such ability had come across his path but 

that the artist would not teach Ehret his skill; he only allowed him to grind pigments. 

Ehret tried his hand at painting a tulip for the Margrave and, as an enthusiastic young 

gardener and budding artist, attracted favouritism, which incurred problems with the 

other members of staff, causing young Ehret to leave Karlsruhe after two years. The 

Margrave was sorry to see him go, and offered Ehret employment if ever he should 

return. Ehret embarked on his travels with his older bother, working as oarsmen on the 

Danube River to make their way to Vienna. Sievert provided Ehret with a letter of 

recommendation to Detlef Simpson, gardener at Regensberg, who in turn offered to 

introduce Ehret to Weinmann and Loeschenkohl. His brother travelled on to Vienna, 

while Ehret was employed by Weinmann. 

With a meagre wage of 50 Kroner per year, Ehret executed nearly 500 paintings 

for Weinmann. Regardless of the poor wages, Ehret was now a professional artist. 

Unfortunately, the arrangement was for 1,000 paintings, so Weinmann refused to pay 

more than 20 Kroner. Some of Ehret’s paintings for Weinmann were probably used in 

his publication Phytanthoza Iconographia. The plates are likely to be based in part 

on Ehret’s drawings; some of the aloes are thought to be the most likely candidates, but 

his name does not appear with them, which is just as well, as many of the plates in that 

publication were criticised for inaccuracy. For the next five years Ehret painted plants 

from the garden of the banker Loeschenkohl, for an annual salary of 100 Reichstaler. 

He also coloured engravings for Loeschenkohl’s copy of the Hortus Malabaricus. 

Ehret remarks that, following his initial anger at the falling out with Weinmann, he 

“forgave the loss of money” since he learned so much with him about botany. In his 

leisure hours, he turned his attention to botany and painting, making a collection of 

plants and around 560 paintings. His intention was to move away from gardening and 

into this area.


Ehret struck up a friendship with 

Johann Beurer, who admired his 

collection of paintings and offered to help 

find a buyer. His older cousin, Dr. 

Christoph Jacob Trew, appreciated the 

quality of Ehret’s work, but was 

uninterested in native and common plants 

drawn on writing paper. Dr. Trew showed 

the paintings to Dr. Weidmann, who 

purchased the group, which is now 

partially represented in Lord Derby’s 

collection. Dr. Trew asked Ehret to paint 

exotics for him on large fine paper. Ehret 

had some difficulty finding subject matter, 

as there were only two worthy collections 

in the area, belonging to Ortluff and 

Loeschenkohl, with the former of whom 

he did not have good relations. Ehret’s 

friend Beurer described Ortluff as “the 

most jealous person imaginable”. Ehret 

Figure 2. Portrait of Dr Trew. 

requested that Dr. Trew practise 

(Credit: The Linnean Society) 

discretion in showing the 80 plates sent 

in the hopes that the owners of the 

flowers would not discover whose exotics were represented. 

Beurer continued to act as go-between for Ehret and Trew; his admiration for his 

friend is demonstrated in a letter to his older cousin: 

He is not only good as a gardener with plants and architectural layout, but also a 

painter of flowers and an excellent botanist…able to draw a plant so naturally as if it 

were growing in front of him…in summa he is homo exquisitus in everything, he has 

only one fault, he is flighty. 

At about the age of 25, Ehret obtained leave from Loeschenkohl to go and meet 

Dr. Trew in Nuremburg, where Trew instructed Ehret on which part of the flower and 

fruit should be clearly represented to show the different sexes. This later became a 

bone of contention between Trew, Ehret and Linnaeus, the latter claiming to have 

shown Ehret how to best show parts of the flower and fruit around four years later, 

under the protest of Ehret who supposedly “did in the beginning absolutely not want to 

paint the stamina, pistilla and other small parts, as he argued they would spoil the 

drawing”. 

Later Ehret returned to work a little longer for Loeschenkohl, but felt his talent 

was being wasted with colouring plates for Hortus Malabaricus, which he estimated 

would take six more years to finish. So he quit that job, and travelled to Switzerland to 

paint plants for Trew at the Botanic Gardens in Basel. Trew and Ehret enjoyed a close 

professional relationship for the rest of Trew’s life, until 1769. Trew was a fantastic 

mentor for Ehret, and helped him to grasp the botanical relevance of his work. Trew 

had a medical practice, and was a “versatile and talented scholar and collector. He

88 


was a patron of the Botanical Arts, author and publisher of some of the most magnificent 

botanical books published in Europe in the 18th century”. 

In Basel, Ehret made the acquaintance of Samuel Burckhardt, who wished to 

have an entirely new garden laid out on his estate. Ehret first made and sold a plan to 

Burckhardt, and was then employed for a year to bring his design to fruition. During 

this period, the French entered the territory of the Margrave of Baden, causing him to 

retire to his estate at Basel. Burckhardt called upon him and Ehret’s name soon came 

up. The Margrave was pleased to hear of Ehret; it seems that he had had unreliable 

gardeners since his departure and so remembered him the more fondly. He came to 

see Ehret the next day and renewed his offer of employment, but Ehret wished to see 

more of the world and journey to France and Holland; a brave plan considering that 

Germany was at war with France! Through Burckhardt, Ehret was able to obtain a 

passport from the French Governor of Strasburg, dated the 12th of May, 1734, which 

ordered the French to “not give this man any trouble or hindrance, on the contrary 

every kind of help and assistance if needed. This is valid for the whole of France”. The 

Margrave gave Ehret a glowing letter of introduction to George Clifford in Holland. It 

was a document that would prove quite useful in due time, and the Margrave’s personal 

physician, Dr. Eichrodt, provided a similar letter to Bernard de Jussieu in Paris. 

Ehret may have been flighty, but his travels seem to have been blessed by fate. 

He travelled through Lausanne and Geneva before boarding a boat on the Rhone to 

Lyons. The only other passenger, a French lady accompanied by her servants, turned 

out to be closely related to Monsieur du Fay, director of the Jardin du Roi. After paying 

for his ticket, she found Ehret good cheap lodgings in Lyons. He then made his way to 

Montpelier by postchaise for a mere five shillings, and stayed in lodgings with a landlady 

whose patois he could not understand. She introduced Ehret to a local German doctor 

for translation, who by coincidence was an acquaintance of Dr. Trew! Dr. Molie took 

Ehret to better lodgings, where he stayed for another month. He drew more plants for 

Dr. Trew, but the heat dried out much of the vegetation, so he joined a group of muleteers. 

Ehret reached Clermont, and fate was still on his side; after finding no available 

lodgings, he resolved to sleep in a stable but was driven to walk the streets after the 

heat and the smell were too much to bear. By chance he met a man who took him 

home and gave him his own bed, supper and a glass of wine. Ehret was touched by this 

kindness. He proceeded on foot to Paris, where he met Bernard de Jussieu, who gave 

him a room in the garden house of the Jardin des Plantes. Here he drew more plants 

for Dr. Trew, Charles François de Cisternay du Fay, and the Marquis du Gouvernet, 

who requested several copies of the Guernsey lily, Nerine sarniensis or as they called 

it, the Japanese lily, which was flowering in his garden, for his friends. 

This was one of the first drawings Ehret executed on vellum, which was the 

tradition employed at the Jardin des Plantes for the King’s collection. It is likely that 

Ehret learned this technique here, perhaps from the young Madeleine Basseporte, who 

had recently succeeded her instructor Claude Aubriet as official painter and instructor 

to the royal princesses, under the supervision of Jussieu. Painting on vellum required 

Ehret to develop a different approach in order to adapt to its unique characteristics. 

Vellum does not absorb any of the pigment as paper does, it lies on top and can be 

scraped off. It has a luminous quality, as it tends to be less opaque than paper which


Figure 3. Lathyrus distoplatphyllus: a well-observed sketch (Photo: A.E. Browne, Picture: NHM, 

London) compared with (right) a highly stylised commissioned work on vellum. (Credit: RHS, 

Lindley Library) 

allows the pigment particles to catch more light. Combining this quality with more 

translucent pigments can enhance this effect. Ehret and Aubriet took this one step 

further by frequently applying body colour or gouache to give depth and texture in 

some areas and translucent washes in others for contrast. Watercolours tend to be 

more transluscent, while gouache paints have an added filler that gives an opaque 

depth. Vellum was not generally used for publication due to its extravagant expense. 

A few traces of Aubriet’s style may be detected in some of Ehret’s work, including 

stylised elements such as selective composition, uniform hairs, veins and shadowing on 

the stem and leaves. Aubriet and Ehret both stylised highly finished works on vellum, 

intended for wealthy aristocratic patrons, who preferred idealised form with beautiful 

script, and they also both produced far more closely observed, naturalistic works for 

men of science. Note (Fig. 5) the flower parts illustrated by Aubriet; here is another 

opportunity Ehret had to learn the importance of their depiction. 

Ehret stayed the winter but the exorbitant cost of living in Paris soon left his 

pocket empty, so he made plans to travel to Holland in the spring. The Jussieu brothers 

convinced him to try England instead and provided him with many letters of introduction 

for his trip. Monsieur du Fay gave him a letter for the Duke of Richmond and obtained 

a passport from the King himself; a rare commodity that would have allowed Ehret to 

return whenever he pleased. With this document in hand, despite travelling through 

French borders as a German in times of war, Ehret was afraid of nothing. His bravado

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was demonstrated when asked to produce his passport by the sentinel at Abbeville. 

Ehret refused to show his precious document to a common soldier, and was led with 

fixed bayonets to the Governor, who on seeing the passport immediately set him free. 

Ehret journeyed to London where he was anxious to see, among other things, the 

garden of Peter Collinson, the wonders of which Jussieu had related, including the new 

Collinsonia which Jussieu had named for him. He first visited Sir Hans Sloane, who, 

along with Philip Miller at the Chelsea Physick Garden, promised to promote Ehret, 

who received many commissions for work and drew a further 200 plants for Dr. Trew. 

After about a year, however, the commissions ran dry, and so Ehret resolved to travel 

finally to Holland, to seek out George Clifford, in early 1736. Ehret stayed for nearly a 

year in Leiden, then a centre of botanical studies, when he heard that Linnaeus was 

staying with Clifford at Hartekamp, one of the most important botanical gardens of 

Europe in the 18th century. 

Linnaeus described the splendour of Hartecamp: the gardens were “masterpieces 

of Nature aided by Art,” with their “shady walks, topiary, statues, fishponds, artificial 

mounds and mazes”. The zoo was “full of tigers, apes, wild dogs, Indian deer and 

goats, peccaries and African swine; with innumerable varieties of birds that made the 

garden echo and re-echo with their cries”. But still more exciting to him were the 

“houses of Adonis” or hot-houses: 

“When finally, I entered [the] truly regal 

house and splendidly equipped 

museum… I as a foreigner felt quite 

carried away, for I had never seen their 

equal”. 

Figure 4. Aloe arborea – watercolour on paper 

by Ehret. (Credit: RHS, Lindley Library) 

Boerhaave, who was Clifford’s 

doctor, became acquainted with 

Linnaeus through Gronovius, Linnaeus’ 

friend and mentor, and convinced 

Clifford that he should have a personal 

physician. He recommended Linnaeus, 

who Clifford hired for 1,000 florins per 

annum with room and board, a cook and 

servants, a pair of horses and a carriage. 

In order that he might impress these two, 

Ehret produced some new paintings of 

curious plants he brought from England, 

some of them newly introduced, with, 

he writes, “their characteristics added 

thereto”. And once presented to Clifford 

and Linnaeus, Ehret notes that “no one 

was more eager in the characteristics 

of plants” than Linnaeus. The coming 

together of Ehret and Linnaeus at this 

time was hailed by W.T. Stearn as a 

“miraculous coincidence of history”.


Figure 5. Jasminum Arabicum (Coffee arabica) by Claude Aubriet; a comparison of 

naturalistic and selective composition. (Credit: RHS, Lindley Library) 

Clifford bought almost all the drawings Ehret had with him for 3 Dutch Gulden a 

piece, and kept him at Hartekamp for over a month producing 20 illustrations for the 

Hortus Cliffortianus, including, according to Ehret, some of the dried plants he brought 

from England such as Collinsonia and Turnera. In his memoirs, Ehret bemoaned the 

fact that he related the story to Linnaeus of the Collinsonia, that it flowered first in 

Collinson’s garden and was named by Jussieu, “but as a beginner Linnaeus appropriated 

everything he heard of to make himself famous”. 

Certainly there is no indication in the text of Jussieu’s involvment. Dr. Trew 

corroborates this, as well as the dispute on who taught Ehret to depict parts of plants, 

what Ehret calls “characteristics”. Ehret goes so far as to maintain that he profited 

nothing from Linnaeus in the dissection of plants; he had learned it all from Trew years 

earlier. 

Ehret felt he should receive special credit for his images, instead of being treated 

as “a common draughtsman”. However, in the very next paragraph he writes of how 

During the time I was with Mr. Clifford I was treated courteously… Linnaeus and I 

were the best of friends; he showed me his new method of examining the stamens, 

which I easily understood and privately resolved to bring out a tabella of it. 

Why did he not wish to draw the tabella for the Hortus Cliffortianus? He writes 

he did not know Linnaeus intended to publish. Linnaeus did publish a tabella in his 

Genera Plantarum and inserted it in Systema Naturae, but these were “direct 

plagiarisms… engraved and printed without knowledge or permission of Ehret”.

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Figure 6. Leaf detail, illustrating a 

technique employing mixed application 

of watercolour and body colour or 

gouache on selected areas for 

enhanced contrast of translucent and 

opaque pigments on vellum. The stem 

shows stylised uniform hairs typical of 

works commissioned by aristocrats 

preferring an idealised form to scientific 

accuracy. (Credit: RHS, Lindley Library) 

It is intriguing that a copy of Ehret’s authentic tabella is inserted in Linnaeus’ own 

copy of Systema Naturae, held in the Hagströmer Biblioteket. If he had this in his 

possession, why not use it for his publications and give credit? In fact, Linnaeus’ mentor 

Gronovius, who edited and financed Systema Naturae, produced a copy of the tabella 

and undersold Ehret’s copy for half a Dutch gulden each, which had been selling very 

well for two gulden. 

Despite all this, Linnaeus and Ehret kept up a correspondence with glowing 

compliments to one another, Ehret calling Linnaeus the “Swedish, whom nobody can 

surpass in the botanique”; and Linnaeus writing “Ehret, the best of artists”, and “to 

Apelles, Flora’s adoring painter”. Indeed, Ehret is known to be Linnaeus’ favourite 

botanical artist; the walls of his bedroom are to this day papered with Ehret’s illustrations. 

Although Linnaeus never commissioned Ehret to illustrate his publications, this was 

apparently due to finances rather than professional rivalry. 

What was the reasoning behind these conflicting images of their relationship? 

Ehret seems to have been both excited by Linnaeus’ enthusiasm and jealous of the 

attention Clifford lavished on him. Ehret and Linnaeus were approximately the same 

age, in their late twenties, and although Linnaeus had only just finished university and 

was then working on this doctorate, he had also made an expedition to Lapland and 

had created his new system of classification, and so Clifford felt honoured by his 

presence. 

Linnaeus, for his part, did not appear to give botanical illustration very much 

respect. He writes in Genera Plantarum (1737) that botanical illustration was useful 

only “to boys and those who have more brain-pan than brain”. He thought botanical 

progress was dependant on the use of clear, detailed, technical written descriptions. Of 

course, this attitude reflects his own strength as a scientist and wish for people to 

accept his system, and we also know from attempts in Lapland that he did not posses 

great drawing ability. Blunt, true to his name, remarked on his artistic abilities: 

Matisse once wrote that his ambition was to draw like his little girl of five; Linnaeus 

achieved this effortlessly. 

In fact, before Species Plantarum appeared to bring about modern botanical 

nomenclature in 1753, the “whole enterprise of botany depended on lifelike printed


pictures”. That being said, it appears that some of the same animosities incurred by 

being favourite that Ehret experienced at Karlsruhe, were now being projected onto 

Linnaeus. This may have led him to publish the Tabella without consulting Linnaeus. 

Equally, Linnaeus may not have enjoyed witnessing his new system unveiled graphically 

without his knowledge or consent, before having a chance to publish the idea. In the 

end, however, their shared love of botany seems to have overcome their fragile egos, 

and they remained friends until death. Linnaeus gave Ehret the gift of a genus named 

in his honour: Ehretia. That Ehret rarely used Linnaean names in his drawings when 

later settled in England we will hope is an example of conformity to the status quo of 

the time, as binomial nomenclature was not fully accepted until the 1760s, rather than 

a childish slight. 

After a brief stay in Amsterdam, Ehret journeyed to England, where he knew 

many rare plants to be under cultivation. Ehret understood that he would be able to get 

the best prices for depicting newly introduced exotics, which he pursued almost to the 

end of his life in England. He first drew and engraved a banana, Musa fructu 

cacumerico longior, belonging to Baron Joseph Ayloffe. He also notes his great 

enjoyment at drawing a magnolia from bud to flower in August 1737, walking every 

day from Chelsea to Parsons Green. His joy in this flower can be seen in his sketch, 

with energetic radial flourishes of colour and composition, rejecting a systematic 

approach. He was the first to observe in minute detail the characteristics of the 

Magnolia grandiflora (Magnolia flore ingenti candido), a fact which Dr. Trew 

promoted in the Commercia Litteraria. 

Ehret stayed with or near Philip Miller, Curator of the Chelsea Physick Garden, 

who had promised to promote him on his earlier trip. Ehret writes that he did so in the 

beginning, but they appear to have been some difficulties between the two later on. 

Figure 7. A sketch of a magnolia by Ehret. 

(Photo: A.E. Browne, Picture: Natural History Museum, London)

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Figure 8. Euphorbia paralias on vellum 

by Ehret. (Credit: RHS, Lindley Library) 

Miller included only 16 illustrations by 

Ehret out of 300 included in his Figures 

of the Most Beautiful…Plants 

Described in the Gardener’s 

Dictionary, published in 1760. Linnaeus 

remarked “it would have been better” 

had there been more drawings by Ehret, 

but he observed that there was some 

professional rivalry between Miller and 

Ehret, which effected their friendship. 

Indeed, Ehret notes in his memoirs, 

written at the age of 50 in 1758, that he 

had by then dropped Miller’s 

acquaintance for several years, despite 

having married his wife’s sister, Susanna 

Kennet, in 1738, and named his only 

surviving son George Philip Ehret. 

Of course Ehret couldn’t get along with everyone, and he did enjoy the friendship 

of many, despite his thick German accent and foreigner’s ways. That being the case, 

however, he may have felt unsure of himself at times, which is demonstrated in this 

(Fig. 9) crossed out passage; one of many drafts written for submission to the 

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 

Figure 9. A draft with many alterations written for submission by Ehret to 

the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.


Figure 10. The portrait of Ehret by G. James that now hangs in the Rooms of 

The Linnean Society of London. 

Despite his insecurities and occasional professional rows, another of which he 

had at the Oxford Botanical Garden over hierarchy, he enjoyed a fruitful career full of 

commissions and noble patronage. The Duchess of Portland’s daughters were among 

the most important and lucrative, but there was also the Duchess of Norfolk, the Duchess 

of Leeds, the Duchess of Bridgewater’s two daughters, the Duke of Kent’s two 

daughters, etc, etc. He writes “if I could have divided myself into twenty I would have 

had my hands full”. 

He also attracted the attention of scientists eager to publish his paintings. His 

work appeared in Patrick Browne’s History of Jamaica, the first book in the UK to 

adopt Linnaean nomenclature, as well as Edward Pococke’s Description of the East, 

Alexander Russell’s Natural History of Aleppo, Griffith Hughes’ History of Barbados, 

and Trew’s celebrated Plantae Selectae, which was, sadly, finished after Trew’s death. 

The seven year’s war probably prevented Dr. Trew from reaching completion, but it 

was hailed by many as the most beautiful German plant-book. Bernard de Jussieu said:

96 


The coloured drawings of plants which you have published surpass in beauty and 

exactitude everything that has appeared in this genre until now. 

Plantae Rariores as well as Hortus Nitidissimis were also published by Trew, 

and Ehret published his own Plantae et Papiliones Rariores. Richard Mead, Peter 

Collinson and John Fothergill also commissioned many drawings, and Ehret had more 

work than he could handle, having to turn down proposed work for Dr. Trew later in 

life, when he also complained of failing eyesight. 

Ehret died on 9th September 1770. His wife survived him by 11 years, and his son 

lived in Watford as an apothecary. Ehret’s name died with his son, but he had a daughter 

who produced a large family, one descendant of whom was Sir Arthur Evans, discoverer 

of Knossos Palace, who acquired and donated Ehret’s portrait by G. James to the 

Linnean Society. Ehret was carried by his talent and skill on a wave of the enlightened 

interest in natural science of his time. Professionals and amateurs alike put today’s 

levels of enthusiasm to shame. His energy and general good temper as well as his 

obvious passion and delight of nature come across in his work. He has preserved for 

us not only the transient beauty of a flower, but also a glimpse into the golden age of 

botany. 

References 

Interview with Gillian Barlow, artist. On properties of vellum and opinion on Ehret’s work. 

Manuscripts, Artworks and Unpublished Sources: 

Linnean Society Library: Ellis MS and Domestic Archive; James, G. Oil Portrait of Ehret. 

Natural History Museum, Botany Library: Ehret MSS. 

Ehret sketches and drawings from the Joseph Banks Collection. 

Royal Horticultural Society’s Lindley Library: Original paintings by Ehret. 

Knowsley Hall, the Earl of Derby’s Collection: Original paintings by Ehret. 

Published Sources: 

Blunt, Wilfrid and Stearn, William T. 1994. 3rd edition. The Art of Botanical Illustration. Kew. 

Browne, Patrick. 1789. 2nd edition. The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica. London. 

Calmann, Gerta. 1977. Ehret: Flower Painter Extraordinary: an Illustrated Biography. London. 

Catesby, Mark. 1754. 2nd edition. The Natural History of Carolina. London. 

Desmond, R. 1994. 2nd edition. Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists 

Including Plant Collectors and Botanical Artists. London. 

Ehret, G.D. A Memoir of Georg Dionysius Ehret… written by himself, and translated, with notes, 

by E.S. Barton. Proc. Linn. Soc. London, 1894–95: 41–58. 

Ehret, G.D. 1748–59. Plantae et papiliones Rariores Depictae et Aeri Incise. London. 

Hagelin, Ove. 2001. Georg Dionysius Ehret and His Plate of the Sexual System of Plants in 

Linnaeus’ Own Copy of Systema Naturae. Stockholm. 

Linnaeus, Carl. 1737. Hortus Cliffortianus. Amsterdam. 

Murdoch, Colin. 1970. G.D. Ehret, Botanical Artist: a Tribute to His Genius. Kingussie. 

Trew, Christoph Jakob. 1768–86. Hortus Nitidissimis Omnem per Annum Superbiens Floribus 

sive Amoenissimorum Florum Imagines. Nuremburg 

Trew, Christoph Jakob, 1795. Plantae Rariores. Altdorf. 

Weinmann, Johann Wilhelm von. 1735–45. Phytanthoza Iconographia. Regensburg.


Botanical Art in the Age of Linnaeus 

Brent Elliott FLS 

Lindley Library, Royal Horticultural Society 

80, Vincent Square, London SW1P 2PE, U.K. 

The introduction of the Linnaean system of classification began in the 1730s, and 

was internationally dominant within two decades. During the second half of the 18th 

century botanical publication was very much under the influence of Linnaeus, and the 

illustration of botanical monographs was adapted to the demands of Linnaean taxonomy. 

Linnaeus’ system depended on the numbering of the sexual organs of flowering 

plants; all his classes except for Cryptogamia are distinguished either by the number of 

stamens, or by the arrangement of groups of stamens. For an artist producing illustrations 

for works using the Linnaean system, the most important thing to illustrate was therefore 

the anatomy of the flower, and more particularly of the sexual organs. 

In one sense, this concentration on stamens and pistils resulted in an improvement 

in the skills of botanical artists. The work of even the best of their predecessors was 

deficient by Linnaean standards in the depiction of flowers. The engravings after Nicolas 

Robert published in the Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire des plantes (1676–1701) 

included the most detailed portrayals of plants hitherto published, but the reader will 

search in vain for an accurate presentation of the number of stamens. Until Linnaeus, 

stamen number had no particular diagnostic significance, and artists concentrated their 

skills on structures that were more obviously useful for identification. The famous anecdote 

of Linnaeus’ meeting with Dillenius makes the point nicely. Challenging Dillenius’ claims 

that his descriptions were inaccurate, Linnaeus tested the plants in Dillenius’ garden, 

starting with a Blitum, which Dillenius had described as having three stamens: 

I opened the flower and showed him that it had only one. ‘No doubt it’s an abnormal 

specimen’, he said. We opened several more, and they were all the same. We passed 

on to several other genera, and all tallied with my description of them. Dillenius was 

amazed and said, ‘I shall not let you leave’. (Cited in Wilfrid Blunt, The Compleat 

Naturalist.) 

The plates in Dillenius’ Hortus Elthamensis (1732), whatever their other merits, 

cannot be said to be accurate renditions of stamen numbering. One plate is reproduced 

here: what Dillenius called Achyracantha repens, and Linnaeus called Illecebrum 

achyrantha (Fig. 1). The plate includes a floral dissection, but Linnaeus put this plant in 

Pentandria, and the plate does not show five stamens. As can be seen from this example, 

floral dissections were not a new idea in the Linnaean age, although their frequency 

increased markedly, but it had not previously been thought that the numbering of the 

stamens was a matter of particular interest. 

The concentration on floral parts meant that the microscope, at least in its singlelens 

version, became a major tool for the artist. Ehret complained in his later years that 

his eyesight was suffering as a result of the microscopic work he had to do. Linnaeus 

was later to say that:

98 


Figure 1. Achyracantha repens, foliis Bliti pallidi (Illecebrum achyrantha) from J.J. 

Dillenius, Hortus Elthamensis (1732), vol. II plate 7. (Credit: RHS, Lindley Library) 

Ehret did in the beginning absolutely not want to paint the stamina, pistilla and other 

small parts, as he argued they would spoil the drawing; in the end he gave in, 

however, and then he liked this kind of work so much that thereafter he observed the 

most minute and inessential particulars. (Cited in Gerta Calmann, Ehret.) 

Ehret disputed this, and there is good evidence that he was making floral dissections 

before his work for Linnaeus; but the anecdote at least shows that such dissections 

were not commonplace until the introduction of Linnaean taxonomy made them a 

requirement. Ehret’s work helped to popularise the floral dissection and to standardise 

its presentation; at mid-century one can still find the component parts of the flower 

scattered around the plate, so to speak, while by the 1770s, especially in the work of 

James Sowerby and those influenced by him, the parts of the dissection are arranged 

in a neat line, usually at the base of the plate. Shown opposite (Fig. 2) is one of the 

plates from Cavanilles’ Dissertationes (1785–9), showing Melia azederach, illustrating 

nicely the presentation of the dissection in a line.


So the demands of the sexual system resulted in an improved representation of 

floral anatomy. In the hands of a sensitive observer, this detailed examination of the 

flower could produce data that went far beyond the requirements of Linnaean classification, 

and in the end helped to undermine it. The maverick botanist Dominique Villars, in his 

study of the plants of the Dauphiné, devoted much attention to local variations in 

morphology – the sort of evidence that Lamarck would rely on in his assertion of the 

unreality of species; Villars’ plate 13 bis (Fig. 3) is a tour de force, recording the variations 

in floral structure observed in a species of Pleurospermum. 

Figure 2. Melia azederach, from Cavanilles, 

Monadelphiæ Classis Dissertationes Decem (1785–9). (Credit: RHS, Lindley Library)

100 


Figure 3. Ligusticum gmelini (Pleurospermum austriacum), from Dominique Villars, Histoire 

des Plantes de Dauphiné (1786–9), plate 13 bis. (Credit: RHS, Lindley Library)


On the other hand, the concentration on the flower meant that other aspects of 

plant anatomy were neglected. The depiction of root systems virtually disappears from 

botanical art in the second half of the 18th century: only bulbous plants which were 

commonly sold with roots visible, or plants where the roots were of economic importance, 

tend to have their roots shown. Progressively as the century went on, even general 

morphology suffered. 

One device that various artists, most notably James Sowerby, used to retain a 

certain amount of leaf and stem anatomy while ensuring that the floral dissection remained 

paramount was the outline: the flower might appear centre-page, in detail and in colour, 

while behind it appeared a characteristic leaf and stem in outline (including venation), 

partially obscured by the flower but presenting enough information for the botanist to use 

leaf morphology as a guide to identification. Leaf outlines in the background of the plate 

did not, however, uniformly testify to the careful observations of the artist. Linnaeus had 

published a table of leaf shapes in the Hortus Cliffortianus, which was copied elsewhere, 

so there was a handy set of abstractions available for the artist to use as a fall-back. 

Sometimes, as in Reichenbach’s Monographia Generis Aconiti (1820–21), the tangle 

of lines behind the flower militated against any attempt to use the leaf diagram effectively. 

As time went on, one can sense among botanists and their artists an increasing 

tendency to see how little information need be presented about the parts of the plant 

other than the flower. Johann Reinhold Forster’s pioneering work on the flora of Australasia, 

the Characteres Generum Plantarum, quas in Itinere ad Insulas Maris Australis of 

1776, illustrates floral dissections only (Fig. 4), completely eliminating any morphological 

information about leaves, stems, or habit; such information was, from the point of view of 

a strict Linnaean, superfluous. This trend can be followed in such works as Thomas 

Martyn’s Thirty-eight Plates … to illustrate Linnaeus’s System (1788) and Richard 

Duppa’s Classes and Orders of the Linnaean System (1816). The most magnificent 

flowering of this tendency is to be found in the Tabulae Phytographicae of Johannes 

Gessner (or Gesner). Gessner (1709–90) was a correspondent of Linnaeus from the 

early 1740s, and earned Linnaeus’ praise as “a man whom I esteem above all other 

botanists”. He exchanged ideas and plant specimens with Linnaeus, and planned an 

illustrated work that would set out comparative details of the different plant families on 

composite plates for ease of comparison. In 1763 Gessner sent Linnaeus copies of the 

first two plates of his intended work to be printed, and Linnaeus replied that he was 

“thunderstruck” by their quality. Gessner died before the work was complete, and Linnaeus 

never saw the publication. In 1795 Christoph Salomon Schinz finally began the process 

of seeing Gessner’s manuscript through the press; publication continued until 1811 at 

least, with the last plates unaccompanied by text. A specimen plate is reproduced here 

(Fig. 5). 

Most artists, however, did not pursue reductionism so far, and remained content 

with the depiction of the flower, its dissection, and a certain amount of leaf and stem. 

Among the great projects of the later 18th century one can include the Flora Danica 

(1764–1810), John Miller’s Illustration of the Sexual System (1770–77), Curtis’ Flora 

Londinensis (1775–98), and Allioni’s Flora Pedemontana (1785). Curtis’ Botanical 

Magazine was begun in 1787, and carried on a Linnaean tradition of illustration well into 

the 19th century.

102 


Figure 4. Drimys, from Johann Reinhold Forster, Characteres Generum Plantarum (1776). 

(Credit: RHS, Lindley Library)


Figure 5. Decandria, from Johannes Gessner, Tabulae phytognomicae (1795–1804). 

(Credit: RHS, Lindley Library)

104 


The age of Linnaean illustration could be said to have ended in self-parody, with the 

publication of Robert John Thornton’s New Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus, 

compiled between 1797 and 1807: the ancestor of the modern coffee-table book, and a 

complete triumph of style over substance. For a not very extensive text on sexuality in 

plants and Linnaean classification, Thornton commissioned a battery of well-established 

artists (and calligraphers!) to produce ornamental plates, some emblematic (a battery of 

classical gods crowning a bust of Linnaeus), some plant portraits – but portraits with 

arbitrarily selected landscape backgrounds, unrelated to the native habitat of the plants. 

By the time Thornton had completed his beautiful piece of puff, the Linnaean system 

had come under attack on the continent; Jussieu’s rival system of classification, dividing 

the flowering plants into monocotyledons and dicotyledons, with families based on a 

variety of critera, was gaining converts, and being added to and improved by Candolle, 

Robert Brown, and others. The sexual system was labelled an “artificial” system; what 

the new generation required was a “natural” system, that took all the parts of the plant 

into consideration. P.J.F. Turpin and the brothers Bauer were the leading artists of the 

new school. In Turpin’s early work for Humboldt, Bonpland and Kunth, based on the 

herbarium specimens they sent back from South America, he created exact portraits of 

the individual specimens. Ferdinand Bauer, in his plates for Sibthorp’s Flora Graeca, 

reintroduced root systems into his depictions, even though these were not required by the 

botanist. 

Probably the most famous of all botanical artists, Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759– 

1840), is best considered as an adherent of the Linnaean tradition in botanical art, even 

though he was a contemporary of the artists who rebelled against Linnaean principles. In 

his early work, providing illustrations for works by L’Héritier de Brutelle (Cornus, 

Geraniologia) and Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle (Historia Plantarum 

Succulentarum), he produced magnificent plates that presented the morphology of the 

entire plant. But once he had achieved sufficient fame and power to control his own 

publications (so that in Les Liliacées and Les Roses his name received top billing on the 

title-page, while the botanists who wrote his text were given much less prominence), he 

progressively abandoned the ideal of the total plant, and in large part reverted to 

concentration on the flower alone. 

During the course of the early 19th century, the Linnaean system of classification 

was progressively abandoned throughout Europe, lingering longest in England. But 

even there the new approaches to plant illustration won out, and work influenced by 

the Bauer brothers in particular was produced in the second quarter of the century to 

accompany books that were still basically Linnaean in their textual treatment. Mrs 

Bury’s Selection of Hexandrian Plants (1831–34) might still use Linnaean 

classification in its title, but the illustrations were, in their treatment of the general 

morphology of the subjects depicted, far removed from the 18th century tradition. The 

Botanical Register, under John Lindley’s editorship in the 1820s and 1830s, with 

drawings by Sarah Anne Drake, rivalled Curtis’s Botanical Magazine and set a non- 

Linnaean standard that Curtis eventually caught up with. But the half-century and 

more of Linnaean domination had led artists into a more detailed examination of certain 

aspects of plant anatomy than had ever before been required, and introduced a greater 

rigour into botanical illustration.


Linnaeus’ Legacy: Botanical Art from the Age 

of Transoceanic Discovery 

John Edmondson FLS 

National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside 

Liverpool Museum, William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EN, U.K. 

As well as bringing back novel plants from newly discovered lands, some explorers 

arranged to capture and disseminate images of how their collections appeared in the 

living state, images that were as novel in their day as those first satellite views of the 

far side of the moon. Despite their initially indifferent quality, these not only enthralled 

and captivated their peers, but also provided information that was essential to the full 

scientific description of the newly discovered species. 

An equally important reason for the creation of botanical art was to record the 

first flowering in cultivation of new and remarkable species. In this paper, however, I 

will focus on 18th century botanical art that was generated, or commissioned by, the 

pioneer explorers, including some of Linnaeus’ “disciples”, while touching on the art of 

resident botanists. Linnaeus himself was a pioneering explorer of Lapland, Dalarna, 

Õland and Gotland. He meant different things to different people. But one thing is 

certain: he was no great botanical artist. Wilfrid Blunt provided an apt commentary: 

Matisse once wrote that his ambition was to draw like his little girl of five; Linnaeus 

achieved this effortlessly. 

Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716) was a near-contemporary of Linnaeus, rather 

than a follower. However, his images were cited in Linnaeus’ works, as described 

elsewhere in this volume by Charlie Jarvis, and they became the basis for typifying 

newly described species. Kaempfer was a German-born explorer who lived in Nagasaki, 

Japan in the early 1690s. In his Amoenitates Exoticarum, published in 1712, he provided 

the first illustrations of the Camellia under the Japanese name Tsubakki (Fig.1). After 

his death, his papers and specimens were acquired through the good offices of Dr 

Steigerthal by Sir Hans Sloane, who organised an English translation of Kaempfer’s 

History of Japan; and this plate, taken from that work (published in 1727) shows an 

image of an early Camellia bearing a strong resemblance to the Tea plant. It is interesting 

to note that the original German edition was delayed, according to the translator’s 

introduction, by “the want of good engravers”. This was to be a recurrent theme 

throughout the 18th century. As well as describing about a hundred Japanese plants he 

also wrote about tea, paper making, acupuncture and ambergris. 

The early 18th century also witnessed the expansion of state-sponsored exploration 

in France. Joseph Pitton de Tournefort was dispatched on a mission to the Patriarch of 

Armenia by King Louis of France from 1700 to 1702, accompanied by the artist Claude 

Aubriet and botanist Andreas von Gundelsheimer. This expedition laid the foundations 

for Linnaeus’ knowledge of the flora of Anatolia and, later on, Sibthorp & Smith’s 

Flora Graeca. Tournefort’s far from satisfactory classification of plants also prompted 

Linnaeus to develop a more practical and all-embracing method, and one which also

106 


Figure 1. Tsubakki, Camellia japonica from Engelbert Kaempfer’s Amoenitates Exoticarum 

(1712), formerly in the Earl of Derby’s library, Knowsley Hall. Courtesy of the Board of 

Trustees of National Museums Liverpool. 

made botanical illustrators pay more attention to the minute details of plants’ sexual 

organs, flowers and fruits. 

Sir Hans Sloane, who was a long-serving President of the Royal Society, was 

born in 1660 and was elected to that body as a comparatively young man in 1685. In 

1687 he went to Jamaica as the personal physician to the Duke of Albemarle, but the 

death of his patient does not seem to have damaged his career. Indeed, it gave him 

more scope for studying the flora of Jamaica, as John Ray had encouraged him to do, 

and on his return to Britain he catalogued more than 800 species of plants in 1696. 

Later, he described the natural history of Jamaica in more detail in his A voyage to the 

islands…with the Natural history… of Jamaica, the first volume of which appeared 

in 1707 and the second in 1725. Linnaeus placed considerable reliance on Sloane’s text 

and drawings in describing the Jamaican flora in his Species Plantarum of 1753, 

coincidentally the year of Sloane’s death. 

One of the collections acquired by Sir Hans Sloane was that of the Essex-born 

explorer Mark Catesby (1683–1749). He too had early contact with John Ray, and 

when he went to visit his sister in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1712, using a legacy from 

his father, he first obtained seeds and botanical specimens, some of which he forwarded 

to the London nurseryman Thomas Fairchild. His success in growing these novelties 

soon attracted the attention of other botanists, and William Sherard proposed that Catesby 

should return to America to collect for the Royal Society. He travelled quite widely in 

the Carolinas and beyond, including the West Indies, sending specimens back to Sir 

Hans Sloane before returning in 1726. His Natural History, in folio with coloured 

plates, benefitted from the patronage of Peter Collinson, a London haberdasher and 

keen horticulturist who was also providing financial support to North America’s first

THE LINNAEAN LEGACY: THREE HUNDRED YEARS AFTER HIS BIRTH 107 

native-born botanical collector, John Bartram. Collinson provided an interest-free loan 

that enabled Catesby to publish his first volume in 1731; two years later he was elected 

as a Fellow of the Royal Society. Linnaeus made use of material from the Natural 

History in his Species Plantarum and also in Systema Naturae. Finally, in 1746 Catesby 

published a Supplement in which he described more material sent to him by Bartram 

and others. 

We know of Collinson’s support of Catesby because an extra-illustrated copy of 

his Natural History has been preserved in the Earl of Derby’s library at Knowsley 

Hall. It was Collinson’s own copy. In it, his inscription records that he sponsored its 

publication. Remarkably, no-one has yet discovered the identity of the book’s printer. 

We do know, however, that Catesby taught himself the necessary skill of engraving the 

plates. Again, the high cost of employing an engraver was evidently an issue. The 

close links between Bartram, Collinson, Ehret and Catesby are further revealed by the 

presence in the Knowsley volume of some original drawings of North American plants 

by Bartram’s son William, whose work was praised by Dr John Fothergill in a letter to 

John Bartram as being almost up to the standard of Ehret’s work. This was a somewhat 

flattering comparison. 

Collinsonia commemorates Peter Collinson (Fig. 2), and was introduced from 

North America where it was first collected by John Bartram. A member of the labiate 

family, it never really caught on as a popular garden plant. 

Jumping ahead in time to refer to pupils of Linnaeus, the most notable Swedish 

botanist to explore North America in the 18th 

century was Pehr Kalm, who is commemorated 

in the genus Kalmia. His book 

Travels in North America, originally written 

in Swedish and published in J.R. Forster’s 

English edition in 1770, describes not only 

the hardy plants which were the primary 

focus of his expedition but also the material 

culture of Native Americans and their 

interactions with the colonists in everyday 

life which, together with his natural history 

observations, give the book a wide appeal. 

The illustrations, however, are mainly of 

animals – and waterfalls. 

Hortus Elthamensis, written by Johann 

Jakob Dillenius (1687–1747) to describe the 

plants in the Eltham garden of James Sherard, 

marks a further stage in the development of 

the Florilegium. Linnaeus’ visit to Oxford in 

1736 undoubtedly influenced both the form 

of his great work Hortus Cliffortianus and 

convinced him of the need to procure the 

services of a competent botanical artist. The 

plates in Hortus Elthamensis were drawn 

Figure 2. Peter Collinson FRS, SAS, Acad. 

Reg. Berol. Et Suec. Soc., Æta: LXXV, 

engraved by J. Miller, showing (on left) the 

plate of Collinsonia from Linnaeus’ Hortus 

Cliffortianus (1737/8). Courtesy of the 

Linnean Society of London.

108 


by Dillenius himself, and the illustrations in his work on mosses, Historia Muscorum, 

leave one in no doubt as to his limitations. 

Another powerhouse for plant introductions from North America was the Chelsea 

Physic Garden, whose curator Philip Miller was at the centre of a web of contacts 

between explorers, sponsors, cultivators and illustrators. One of these was Dutch-born 

Figure 3. Pistachia Nut, Pistacia vera, Scarlet Horse Chesnut, Aesculus pavia and 

Oleaster or Wild Olive, Olea europaea subsp. oleaster, from A catalogue of trees, 

shrubs, plants and flowers, both exotic and domestic, by A Society of Gardeners (1730). 

Courtesy of the Linnean Society of London.


Jacob van Huysum (ca. 1687–1740) who illustrated, among many other collections, 

the plants brought back from the West Indies by William Houstoun (1795–1733). Some 

of these illustrations were included in Miller’s Catalogus Plantarum (1730) (Fig. 3). 

Houston collected in Mexico, the Caribbean and tropical South America. It was the 

demanding horticultural requirements of these tropical plants that propelled the 

technological innovations at Chelsea, including the construction of hot-wall heated 

greenhouses. Sadly, van Huysum was driven to drink and failed to measure up to the 

superlative artistic achievements of his brother Jan. 

Philip Miller’s other major claim to fame was his Gardener’s Dictionary, which 

ran through eight main folio editions and some abridged versions for the less wealthy 

purchaser. As this was not illustrated, Miller also commissioned the engraving of 300 

copper plates for his Figures of the most beautiful, useful and uncommon plants 

described in the Gardener’s Dictionary, published in 1760. The title, indeed, 

encapsulates the criteria used for selecting plants to be figured; Beauty, Utility and 

Rarity. This volume contained plates based on figures by Bartram, Ehret, Houstoun 

and J.S. Müller (later anglicised to Miller). In the Introduction, Miller explains that the 

expenses of production forced him: 

almost from the beginning to contract his plan, and confine it to those plants only 

which are either curious in themselves, or may be useful in trades, medicine etc., 

including the figures of such new plants as have not been noticed by any former 

botanists. 

While the British had benefited from plants newly introduced from North America, 

the Dutch had similarly enriched their gardens with new plants from their colony at the 

Cape of Good Hope. Many were succulents which, with the rather primitive methods 

then available, were better suited to surviving long ocean voyages. The Duchess of 

Beaufort, who had fine gardens at Badminton and the Strand, commissioned a complex 

if financially incompetent horticulturist, Richard Bradley, to travel to Holland in search 

of novelties, with an introduction to Boerhaave provided by James Petiver. Bradley 

was a Fellow of the Royal Society (an accolade perhaps more easy to acquire then 

than now) with a penchant for succulents. His major work, Historia plantarum 

succulentarum, was a pioneering illustrated book in that it illustrated a range of species 

drawn, engraved and published by the author himself, many of which had never before 

been seen in cultivation. This approach was followed many years later by James Bolton 

(1735–99), a follower of Ehret (Fig. 4), in his History of funguses growing about 

Halifax (1788–91). 

It is Linnaeus himself that we must thank for cataloguing one of the most important 

Dutch botanical garden collections of the early 18th century, the Hartekamp garden of 

the East India merchant George Clifford. The conjunction of Linnaeus and Ehret in 

Haarlem in 1735–7 was indeed a most fortunate circumstance, but the frontispiece to 

this book, engraved by Wandelaar, is worth examining for its symbolism as well as its 

design. As well as showing the Musa for which Clifford was famous, it also advertised 

the centigrade thermometer and showed the garden’s plan. Clifford, thinly disguised as 

a Classical figure, is also featured among the statuary. With the high production standards 

for which the Netherlands publishing industry is renowned, Hortus Cliffortianus stands 

as Linnaeus’ most lavishly printed work and a worthy legacy of his stay in Holland

110 


Figure 4. Rice, Oryza sativa by Georg D. Ehret (ca. 1732). 

From an album titled Deliciae Botanicae, formerly in the Earl 

of Derby’s library, Knowsley Hall. Courtesy of the Board of 

Trustees of National Museums Liverpool. 

(Fig. 5) (Griffiths, M. 2008. Clifford’s Banana: How Natural History was made in a 

Garden. The Linnean Special Issue No. 7 The Linnaean Collections). 

Linnaeus’ visit to Paris, though brief, enabled him to glimpse the splendour of the 

Velins du Roi. Some were published only in 1788, almost 10 years after his death, in 

Recueil des Plantes Gravées par Ordre du Roi Louis XIV. 

While visiting England, Linnaeus also became acquainted with the aforementioned 

Peter Collinson, seed agent for the American collector John Bartram. Although Bartram 

was one of the most important sources of North American plants in the period after 

Catesby, it was his conifer seed that had the most significant landscape impact, due to 

astute marketing by Collinson. Described as “painting with living pencils”, the use of 

North American conifers in private parks landscaped by his friend Lord Petre, at 

Worksop, Nottinghamshire and Thorndon, Essex, exhibited a new diversity of textures


and colours. The Weymouth Pine is named not for the Dorset town of that name but 

for Lord Weymouth who popularised Pinus strobus shortly after its introduction to 

cultivation in England in 1705. 

The inspiration for Aylmer Bourke Lambert’s Description of the genus Pinus, 

published at the beginning of the 19th century, is said to have been the plantings at 

Painshill Park laid out by Charles Hamilton, another recipient of Collinson’s conifer 

imports. Lambert also acknowledges the Earl of Derby, in whose library now reposes 

a collection of original drawings of pines by the Bauer brothers on which some of the 

published illustrations in The genus Pinus were based. 

Figure 5. Title page of a copy of Hortus Cliffortianus, by C. Linnaeus 

(1737/8) formerly owned by Mary Egerton of Backford Hall, Cheshire. 

Courtesy of the Board of Trustees of National Museums Liverpool.

112 


Having mentioned Ferdinand and Francis Bauer, I regret that the voyage of The 

Investigator under Captain Flinders falls outside the scope of this essay. Some of the 

finest examples of botanical art from the age of exploration post-Linnaeus were made 

on voyages to the South Seas, and one of these was Captain Cook’s first voyage to 

observe the Transit of Venus in Tahiti, on which he was accompanied by Sir Joseph 

Banks. Sydney Parkinson, by profession a draper (like Collinson) was chosen by Banks 

to work as an illustrator at Kew. He was then recruited as a member of Banks’ team 

to accompany himself and Daniel Solander, a Swede and protégé of Linnaeus, on their 

voyage. Sadly Parkinson died during the expedition, but not before he had made extensive 

sketches and finished drawings of the plants and animals of the South Pacific and 

Australasia. The later sketches were worked up after the expedition by Frederick 

Miller and others. Inexplicably, the expensively engraved drawings were never published 

during Banks’ lifetime, but as the copper plates survived they eventually provided the 

raw material for the Alecto edition of Banks’ Florilegium. 

Cook’s second voyage was no less botanically productive, and on this journey he 

was accompanied by Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George. The latter was a 

competent artist whose work is less well known than it might be on account of the fact 

that some of his original drawings were acquired by the London physician and botanist 

Dr John Fothergill, a friend of Collinson and fellow Quaker who owned a private 

botanical garden. Fothergill’s collections of botanical drawings were bought up en 

masse by agents for Tsarina Katerina (Catherine the Second) and were incorporated 

into the royal collections at St Petersburg. There they remain, and I was privileged to 

see the Forster drawings during a recent visit to the Komarov Botanical Institute. 

There are also a number of Ehret’s drawings from the Fothergill collection there: a 

massive, if almost untapped, resource. 

Linnaeus’ legacy of botanical art includes a most unusual phenomenon: botanical 

wallpaper. At his summer house in Sweden, one of the bedrooms contains a wideranging 

collection of botanical prints from Ehret’s Plantae et Papiliones Rariores, 

Sloane’s Natural History and others, while his study (according to Brian Gardiner’s 

article in The Linnean) contains Plumier’s original drawings for Burman’s Plantarum 

Americanarum, one of which is a type! Clearly Linnaeus subscribed to the view that 

art is made to be seen. 

In The Art of Botanical Illustration, Wilfrid Blunt bemoans the fact that too 

many examples of botanical art of the “age of Ehret” are lying unseen and unsung in 

private and public collections while the public pays fantastic prices for the “sentimental 

trifles of the 19th century”. In this he is echoing the words of John Ruskin, who lamented 

the waste of “exquisite original drawings and sketches of great botanists, now uselessly 

lying in inaccessible cupboards”. It is my earnest hope that in this age of the internet 

such artistic riches will once more be revealed in their full splendour, and that one will 

no longer be restricted to viewing them in 18th century folios.





The Pennant goby (or Fire goby) Nemateleotris magnifica (Photo: P.Morris).

114 



Linné and Taxonomy in Japan: 

On the 300th Anniversary of his Birth 

His Majesty The Emperor of Japan HMLS 

President, dear friends 

I am very grateful to the Linnean Society of London for the kind invitation it 

extended to me to participate in the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the birth of 

Carl von Linné. When, in 1980, I was elected as a foreign member of the Society, I felt 

I did not really deserve the honour, but it has given me great encouragement as I have 

tried to continue my research, finding time between my official duties. 

Today, I would like to speak in memory of Carl von Linné, and address the question 

of how European scholarship has developed in Japan, touching upon the work of people 

like Carl Peter Thunberg, Linné’s disciple who stayed in Japan for a year as a doctor 

for the Dutch Trading House and later published Flora Japonica. 

Carl von Linné, who was born in Sweden in 1707, published in 1735, when he 

was 28 years old, the first edition of Systema Naturae, in which he outlined a new 

system of classification. According to this system, the plant kingdom was classified 

into 24 classes based mainly on the number of stamens, the animal kingdom was classified 

into six classes – quadrupeds, birds, amphibians, fishes, insects and worms – and the 

mineral kingdom was classified into three classes – rocks, minerals and mined material. 

Each class was divided into several orders, and examples of some genera were given 

for each order. Linné firmly believed that nature had been created by God in an orderly 

and systematic manner, and he aimed to discover the order of nature so that he could 

classify and name all things created by God and thus complete the system of nature. 

However, in Linné’s system, which classified plants mainly on the basis of the number 

of stamens, species with different numbers of stamens belonged to different classes, 

even when their other characteristics were very similar, while species with the same 

number of stamens belonged to the same class, even when their other characteristics 

were very different. This led to the idea that the classification of organisms should be 

based on a more comprehensive evaluation of all their characteristics. This idea gained 

increasing support, and Linné’s classification system was eventually replaced by systems 

based on phylogeny. 

The binomial nomenclature proposed by Linné, however, became the basis of the 

scientific names of animals and plants, which are commonly used in the world today, 

not only by people in academia but also by the general public. In the binomial 

nomenclature, the scientific name of a species consists of a combination of the generic 

name and an epithet denoting the species. Before Linné established the binomial 

nomenclature, scientific names consisted of the species’ generic name and a description 

of the characteristics of that particular species which differentiated it from the other 

species in the same genus. Therefore, when there were many species in one genus, 

the description differentiating one species from the others became highly detailed and 

very long, making scientific names difficult to use. To solve this inconvenience, Linné

116 


proposed a new nomenclature, excluding the description of characteristics from the 

scientific name and simplifying it to a combination of a generic name and an epithet 

only, with the description of the species to be noted separately. 

The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and the International Code 

of Botanical Nomenclature stipulate that, when more than one scientific name exists 

for a particular species, the oldest scientific name shall be adopted. It is also stipulated 

that, for spermatophytes and pteridophytes, the scientific names in the first edition of 

Linné’s Species Plantarum, published in 1753, shall be recognised as the oldest scientific 

names, and for animals, the scientific names in Clerck’s Aranei Svecici, a monograph 

on spiders, and those in the 10th edition of Linné’s Systema Naturae, both deemed to 

have been published on 1 January 1758, shall be similarly recognised. The names 

published before these publications are not recognised as scientific names of the 

organisms. 

In the first edition of Species Plantarum and in his later books, Linné described 

many Japanese plants and gave them scientific names. Camellia japonica, for example, 

was described in the first edition of Species Plantarum, and this scientific name is still 

used today. These Japanese plants were illustrated by Engelbert Kaempfer in his book, 

Amoenitatum Exoticarum, which was published in 1712. Kaempfer was a German 

doctor who served in the Dutch Trading House in Japan for two years from 1690. 

At that time, Japan had isolated itself from the world. Japanese people were not 

allowed to go abroad, and visits by foreigners to Japan were severely restricted. As the 

policy of isolation was taken to suppress Christianity, the Dutch, who came for trading 

purposes only and not to promulgate Christianity, were permitted to come to Japan. 

The Dutch people were made to live on an artificial island, Dejima, built in the sea off 

Nagasaki and connected to land by a bridge, and could not leave the island without 

permission. The head of the Trading House, however, was to visit the shogun at Edo, 

present-day Tokyo, once a year, accompanied by his delegation including the doctor. 

Kaempfer thus visited Edo twice during his stay, taking more than 80 days for the trip 

each time. 

It was during his stay in Japan that Kaempfer sketched the plants, which were 

later published in Amoenitatum Exoticarum in 1712. His 256 sketches are now kept in 

the Natural History Museum. 

In 1775, 83 years after Kaempfer left Japan, a Swedish doctor, Carl Peter 

Thunberg, arrived at the Dutch Trading House. Thunberg was Linné’s disciple and 

later became a full professor at Uppsala University in both botany and medicine. 

Kaempfer and Thunberg were both doctors who worked in the Dutch Trading House 

during Japan’s period of isolation. But unlike Kaempfer’s days, Japanese doctors had 

a deeper recognition of European medicine when Thunberg came to Japan. This change 

occurred because in 1720, Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune relaxed the prohibition on 

importing books, which had been put in place to prevent Christian ideas from coming 

into Japan, and allowed the import of books on European science published in China, 

which were unrelated to Christianity. This development stimulated research on European 

science and people came to focus their attention on medical books written in Dutch. 

Yamawaki Toyo, who had studied classical Chinese medicine introduced into 

Japan, noted the great difference between what he had learned and the illustrations in


the imported Dutch medical books. To find out which was true, he performed a dissection 

of a human body in 1754, with permission from the government, and published the 

results as An Account of the Observation of Viscera. From that time onward, 

dissections were often performed. In 1774, a year before Thunberg arrived in Japan, A 

New Book of Anatomy was published. It had been translated from Dutch into Japanese 

by Sugita Genpaku and other doctors of Edo. They decided to start the translation 

when they actually saw a dissection and were convinced of the accuracy of the Dutch 

book on anatomy. Some of the people who came together knew the Dutch language, 

but the leader of the translation project, Sugita Genpaku, did not even know the alphabet. 

Translation proved to be an extremely difficult task, but thanks to the zeal of Genpaku, 

who wanted to publish the book in Japanese as soon as possible and contribute to 

medicine, A New Book of Anatomy was completed for publication after only three 

years. 

In Kaempfer’s posthumous book, The History of Japan, he writes that, during 

his two visits to Edo, only one Japanese doctor visited him just once to ask for medical 

advice on some disease. In Thunberg’s book, Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa 

Made During the Years 1770–1779, however, he writes that immediately upon arrival 

in Edo, he received visits from five doctors and two astronomers, and that thereafter, 

Katsuragawa Hoshu, a doctor for the shogun, and his friend Nakagawa Jun-an visited 

Thunberg almost every day and sometimes stayed till very late into the night to learn 

from him about various scientific matters. These two doctors had both participated in 

the translation of A New Book of Anatomy. In the book, their names appear after 

Sugita Genpaku, the translator, as Nakagawa Jun-an, the editor, and Katsuragawa 

Hoshu, the supervisor. Both of them, Nakagawa Jun-an in particular, could speak Dutch 

quite well. Thunberg writes that he asked them the Japanese names of the fresh plants 

which they brought and taught them the Latin names and the Dutch names of the 

plants. 

Exchanges between Thunberg and the two Japanese doctors continued even 

after Thunberg’s return to Sweden. The letters the two doctors wrote to Thunberg are 

kept in Uppsala University. I saw those letters with Their Majesties the King and 

Queen of Sweden during our visit to Uppsala University in 1985, as Crown Prince and 

Crown Princess, and it left a deep impression on both of us. 

We do not know exactly when the scientific names under the binomial 

nomenclature, originated by Linné, were introduced to Japan. As I mentioned earlier, 

Thunberg writes in his book that he taught Katsuragawa Hoshu and Nakagawa Jun-an 

the Latin names of plants. It is my view, however, that some doubts remain to conclude, 

from what Thunberg writes in this book, that the scientific names were first introduced 

to Japan at that time. 

Linné’s nomenclature started to be used in Japan after a German doctor, Philipp 

Franz von Siebold, arrived at the Dutch Trading House in 1823. By the time Siebold 

came to Japan, there were many Japanese who could speak Dutch. Siebold established 

a school of medicine and a clinic for treating patients in the suburbs of Nagasaki. He 

could also leave the island of Dejima to visit patients at their homes or to collect medicinal 

herbs. It was under such circumstances that in 1829, Ito Keisuke wrote a book in 

which Linné’s nomenclature was used for the first time in Japan. Keisuke took the

118 


scientific names of plants in Thunberg’s Flora Japonica, which Siebold had brought 

to Japan, put them in alphabetical order, and added their Japanese names. In the 

supplement, he introduced Linné’s classification system as “Explanation of the 24 

Classes”. 

Keisuke studied under Siebold for six months in Nagasaki, and when he was 

about to return to his home in Nagoya, he was given Thunberg’s book as a gift. Keisuke 

sent the manuscript of his book, A Translation of Thunberg’s Flora Japonica, to 

Siebold in Nagasaki, and Siebold checked it. 

In 1854, Japan and the United States signed the Treaty of Peace and Amity as 

the arrival of the American naval fleet brought to an end Japan’s policy of isolation, 

which had lasted for more than 200 years. After that, Japan started establishing 

diplomatic relations with many countries. The last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, resigned 

from his post in 1867, and a new government was formed under Emperor Meiji. The 

Meiji government sent students overseas and invited foreign teachers to Japan, and the 

Japanese people made a great effort to acquire Western knowledge. The foreign 

teachers who were invited to Japan at this time made a great contribution to Japan, and 

the students who went to study overseas also contributed in various ways to the 

subsequent development of Japan. 

One of the academic achievements made by Japanese scientists in the 19th century 

was the discovery of ginkgo sperm by Hirase Sakugoro in 1896. Hirase Sakugoro, who 

worked as an illustrator in the botanical laboratory of the University of Tokyo and later 

became a research associate, observed the swimming of ginkgo sperm, and published 

his paper on this discovery in a botanical journal. A month later, Ikeno Sei-ichiro, an 

associate professor in the agricultural department of the University of Tokyo who 

collaborated with Hirase Sakugoro in his studies, found cycad sperm, and also reported 

it in a botanical journal. It was known at the time that ferns have sperm, but this was 

the first time in the world that a gymnosperm was found to have sperm. This discovery 

was not believed at first, but it became accepted after zamia sperm, from the same 

cycad family, was discovered in the United States the following year in 1897. For this 

achievement these two researchers were awarded the Imperial Award of the Japan 

Academy in 1912. 

The ginkgo is a gymnosperm unique in its phylogeny because it is a single-order, 

single-family, single-genus, single-species plant. It flourished in the Mesozoic Jurassic 

age but survived only in China, and was brought from China to Japan in ancient times. 

It was given a scientific name by Linné, on the basis of Kaempfer’s illustration. The 

ginkgo tree that Hirase Sakugoro used for his research is still standing in the Koishikawa 

Botanical Gardens of the University of Tokyo. I visited the botanical gardens with the 

Empress last year and looked at the ginkgo tree, thinking of the research that was done 

a long time ago. 

In the 20th century, as Japanese taxonomy made progress, more and more new 

species began to be reported. Before that, Japanese animals and plants were given 

scientific names by European scientists, and as a matter of course, the type specimens 

used for naming them were kept in European museums. Therefore, when Japanese 

researchers wanted to describe a Japanese animal or plant as a new species, they had


to check the type specimens in foreign countries one by one, and the difficulties they 

encountered were far from trifling. 

Thanks to the efforts made by many people, all Japanese spermatophytes, 

pteridophytes and vertebrates excluding fishes now have scientific names. However, 

there are still many unnamed fishes, and, in particular, there are many gobioids which 

must be given scientific names. 

When I started my research, I frequently referred to a book titled Fish 

Morphology and Hierarchy by Dr. Matsubara Kiyomatsu, published in 1955. The 

book covered all Japanese fishes with keys to the species, and it listed 134 gobioids 

including subspecies. In the more recent Fishes of Japan with Pictorial Keys to the 

Species, published in 2002, the number of gobioids, including subspecies, increased to 

412, but 45 of them have only Japanese names and have no scientific names yet. 

There were two studies that particularly interested me as I embarked on my 

research on gobioids. One was “The osteology and relationships of certain gobioid 

fishes, with particular reference to the genera Kraemeria and Microdesmus” by Dr. 

William Gosline published in 1955, and the other was “Studies of the gobioid fishes in 

Japanese waters; on the comparative morphology, phylogeny, taxonomy, distribution 

and bionomics,” which was an unpublished doctoral thesis by Dr. Takagi Kazunori. 

With these papers as reference, I proceeded with my taxonomical research. On the 

one hand, I studied the relationships among many kinds of gobioids, analysing their 

bones stained with alizarin red. I studied, on the other hand, the differences among 

species of gobioids by comparing the arrangement of their head sensory canal pores 

and sensory papillae. 

Back in the 1960s, no one in Japan was yet classifying gobioids on the basis of 

the arrangement of their head sensory papillae. Therefore, in 1967, when I published 

the classification of the four species of the genus Eleotris found in Japan based on the 

arrangement of their sensory papillae in the Japanese Journal of Ichthyology, 

apparently there were some people who had considerable doubts about my classification. 

However, the arrangement of the sensory papillae has now become an important factor 

in classifying gobioids, and I am glad that I have been able to make some contribution 

in this field. 

The binomial nomenclature established by Linné has been immensely beneficial, 

providing a universal basis for taxonomy throughout the world and enabling taxonomists 

around the world to communicate with each other through a common language about 

things existing in nature. Since then, taxonomy to this day has continued to develop on 

the basis of this binomial nomenclature. As I mentioned at the beginning, Linné’s 

classification system based mainly on the number of stamens was eventually replaced 

by a system based on a more comprehensive evaluation of all characteristics. It is 

understandable that the idea of using phylogeny as the basis for taxonomy had not yet 

appeared at Linne’s time. It was almost a hundred years after Linné that the theory of 

evolution proposed by Darwin and Wallace was presented here at the Linnean Society, 

and the idea of phylogeny became newly accepted in the academia. In academia 

today, an even newer field of research, molecular biology based on evolution, is seeing 

remarkable development. As a result, more importance is placed on phylogeny, and

120 


systems based on phylogeny are considered to be more accurate and are now the 

mainstream of taxonomy. 

As I have been familiar with classifications based on morphology since I was 

young, the appearance of the electron microscope which enabled me to observe minute 

morphological characteristics, and my encounter with an even smaller world, where 

classification is based on DNA analysis at a molecular level, have been great experiences 

for me as a researcher. In the years ahead, I think the analysis of mitochondrial DNAs 

will open up great possibilities of discovering new species which cannot be distinguished 

morphologically but which can be clearly distinguished at a molecular biological level. 

I hope to understand and take into consideration this newly developing field of research, 

but at the same time, I intend to continue to give my attention to and keep up my 

interest in morphology, which is a field of study carried on from Linné’s days. I would 

like to continue my research, always keeping in mind the question of what will be the 

importance and role of morphology in the field of taxonomy in the future. On the 300th 

anniversary of Linné’s birth, I feel that taxonomy, which used to be based solely on 

morphology, is entering a new era. 

In closing, I would like to thank you again for this invitation and I offer my best 

wishes for the further prosperity of the Linnean Society of London.


England’s Linnaeus 

Brent Elliott FLS 

Lindley Library, Royal Horticultural Society 

80, Vincent Square, London SW1P 2PE, U.K. 

Imagine the scene. It is September 1784. Linnaeus’ collections – his herbarium 

of 19,000 specimens, his shell and insect collections of nearly 5,000 specimens, and his 

library of 2,000 volumes – have been purchased by James Edward Smith (Fig. 1), for 

the sum of £1088.5s. They have been loaded onto a ship, which has embarked for 

England. As the ship makes its way through the Baltic Sea, it finds itself pursued. The 

King of Sweden, realising what the loss of these collections would do to Sweden’s 

national pride, has sent another ship to stop the collections from reaching England. But 

the first ship has a decisive advantage, or is faster, and the pursuing ship eventually has 

to give up. Linnaeus’ collections continue on their way to their new home. 

Figure 1. The portrait of James Edward Smith which hangs in the rooms of 

The Linnean Society of London.

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There are a few difficulties with this story, most importantly the fact that it didn’t 

happen. There were, indeed, recriminations in Sweden when it was realised that probably 

the largest natural history collection in the world had been sold to a foreign buyer; J.G. 

Acrel and C.P. Thunberg came in for reproaches for their part in abetting the purchase; 

but there was no chase at sea. Anders Dahl, who had coveted Linnaeus’ collections 

for himself, had written to the King, urging that they be reclaimed, even if they were 

already on board ship, and adding “that foreigners would always taunt the Swedes with 

their inability to retain such precious collections; that the possessor would become a 

Dictator in Science…”. But things moved too slowly. The Stockholm Export Sea 

Customs Chamber issued a certificate on 8 October, stating that the ship had passed 

the last customs post on 29 September, so it was too late to do anything. 

But 20 years after the event, the story of the marine chase was being recounted 

as fact, depicted in Robert John Thornton’s Botanical Extracts, as a vignette 

accompanying a portrait of Smith in a plate printed in 1800 (Fig. 2). Smith must have 

circulated the story; his widow recorded, in her memoir of her husband published in 

1832, that “The ship which was conveying this valuable cargo had just sailed, when the 

king of Sweden, Gustavus III., who had been absent in France, returned home, and 

sent a vessel to the Sound, to intercept its voyage; but happily it was too late. At the 

end of October, 1784, the packages were safely landed at the custom-house”. The 

origin of the story no doubt lies in Dahl’s plea for the seizure of the goods; perhaps by 

the time it reached Smith’s ears it had already been elaborated from an ineffectual 

afterthought to a near miss at sea. 1 

The other problem with this story, apart from its inaccuracy, is its curious tone. 

We can all imagine how a modern historian would present the story: an act of international 

piracy being held up for admiration, the fledgling British Empire gaining practice in 

rapacity through commerce, a presage of the disgraceful conniving at removing the 

Elgin marbles from Greece a few decades later. But this is evidently not how the 

matter was seen at the time. The rhetoric is that of commercial probity: an honourable 

contract is made and adhered to by honourable men, despite the efforts of a foreign 

state to break the contract and force honourable men to renege on their agreements. 

When Acrel was accused of taking a bribe to ensure that customs procedures were 

dealt with speedily, Smith wrote indignantly to defend “the rectitude of your behaviour”. 

Right dealing was the keynote of all the correspondence. Smith had had to get his 

father to advance some money to him, to be able to afford the purchase price; one of 

his father’s letters cautions him “against the enthusiasm of a lover, or the heat of an 

ambitious man”. In all respects, therefore, a triumph for commercial morality, for the 

spirit of business. Rather than thinking of rapacious imperialism, we should perhaps 

think of the boast, a generation later, of the Horticultural Society in its early years, that 

it would show that in England, private enterprise could accomplish what in foreign 

countries had to be attempted by the state. 2 

Of course, the importance of Linnaeus was well understood in England long 

before 1784. Linnaeus had himself visited England in 1736, while on temporary leave 

from George Clifford’s garden at Hartecamp, and there, as everywhere else, he had 

managed to alienate people initially and reconcile them later. Established authorities 

viewed him as an upstart, bumptious and self-promoting, and only afterward were


Figure 2. Portrait of Sir James Edward Smith above a picture of the chase to recover 

Linnaeus’ collections, which appears in Thornton’s Botanical Extracts (1800). 

(Credit: RHS, Lindley Library) 

persuaded of his merits as a botanist. (See for instance the story of his meeting with 

Dillenius. 3 ) In the years 1737–38 Linnaeus published three works in Holland: the Critica 

Botanica, Genera Plantarum, and Hortus Cliffortianus. In these he spelled out both 

his nomenclature – the two-word code – and his taxonomy. Over the next few decades, 

one botanist after another began using the Linnaean system, either the nomenclature

124 


or the taxonomy, not necessarily both. Within a year of the publication of the Genera 

Plantarum, Johannes Burman, in his Rariorum Africanarum Plantarum, adopted 

Linnaeus’ binomial nomenclature. By the 1750s, Linnaeus’ system had effectively ousted 

Tournefort’s, the most generally accepted previous taxonomic system. 4 

But the British did not rush into the arms of Linnaeus; they had had John Ray, and 

who could ask for better than that? The first English work to use the Linnaean system 

of classification was Patrick Browne’s Civil and Natural History of Jamaica in 

1756; but Browne did not use the binary nomenclature. In 1759, Philip Miller adopted 

Linnaean classification – but not the binomial nomenclature – in the seventh edition of 

his Gardeners Dictionary. The following year, in the second volume of his massive 

Vegetable System, Sir John Hill switched over to Linnaean nomenclature. In 1762, 

William Hudson became the first British author to use both Linnaean classification and 

nomenclature in his Flora Anglica; in 1763, Thomas Martyn followed suit in his Plantae 

Cantabrigienses, and, more importantly for the general public, so did James Wheeler 

in his Botanist’s and Gardener’s New Dictionary. In 1768, Philip Miller finally adopted 

Linnaean nomenclature in the eighth edition of his Gardeners Dictionary. 

By the time Linnaeus died in 1778, both his systems had come into general use in 

England. Within three years of his death, the first English biography appeared: Richard 

Pulteney’s General view of the Writings of Linnaeus (1781). Two years later came 

the news that Linnaeus’ collections were available for purchase. The announcement 

was sent to Sir Joseph Banks, who had made an unsuccessful bid for them immediately 

after Linnaeus’ death; Banks by this time thought that he had a sufficiently big library, 

but he recommended to the young James Edward Smith that he try to acquire them – 

with what result, we have seen. In 1788 Smith founded the Linnean Society, to further 

spread the Linnaean system; and in a wonderful example of the business-like spirit, 

when he died in 1828, he did not leave Linnaeus’ collections to the Society; they had to 

raise funds and purchase them from Smith’s widow. 

With the collections now in London, and the Linnean Society in existence, England 

had now become the headquarters of the Linnaean system. Linnaeus’ biography now 

began to be tweaked so as to backdate the connection with England. 

Linnaeus might… have obtained an establishment in England, which, it has been 

thought, was his wish; and certainly his opportunities in this kingdom would have 

been much more favourable to his designs than in those arctic regions where he 

spent the remainder of his days. We may justly infer what an exalted idea Linnaeus 

had of England, as a country eminently favourable to the improvement of science, 

from the compliment which he paid to London, in a letter to a friend; speaking of that 

city, he called it ‘Punctum saliens in vitello orbis’. 5 

Smith circulated a story, which became a favourite of the 19th century. When 

Linnaeus visited England, so the story goes, he saw gorse for the first time; his eyes 

filled with tears, and he got down on his knees and thanked the Creator for letting him 

see the sight. This story, like that of the marine chase, did not happen as described. If 

Linnaeus got down on his knees at his first sight of gorse, it happened in Germany, not 

in England. But the story continued to be told. 6 

One of the reasons for the international success of Linnaean classification was 

its simplicity: the reliance on simple arithmetic (the numbering of stamens) as the basis


for most of the classes in the system. A testimony to the simplicity of the Linnaean 

classification, which led it to be championed as a teaching aid even after its truth to 

nature had been questioned, can be found in the autobiography of Donald Beaton, the 

major gardening journalist of the mid-19th century (despite the fact that, having been 

born into a Gaelic-speaking Highland family, he only learned English as an adult): 

I was now complete master of the Linnean system of Botany, as I thought. I could 

tell the class and order of any fresh flower, and I could run over a wonderful quantity 

of hard words and names. I knew the name and class of almost every plant in that 

part of the country. This was only pastime, compared with … learning to speak 

English. 7 

The acceptance of Linnaeus’ system had to surmount a few philosophical 

obstacles. Some, like Thomas Pennant, took umbrage at his inclusion of man in the list 

of animals: “My vanity will not suffer me to rank mankind with Apes, Monkies, 

Maucaucos and Bats”. But Linnaeus was hardly alone in emphasising the animal nature 

of mankind, and behind Pennant’s remark can be seen the even more startling views of 

Rousseau and Lord Monboddo on the affinities between man and the orang-utan. 8 

More notorious was the emphasis on sexuality. Linnaeus’ taxonomy was, after all, the 

sexual system, and Linnaeus’ supporters made no effort to downplay the fact – as can 

be seen from the title of John Miller’s magnum opus, the Illustration of the Sexual 

System of Linnaeus (1777). There were certainly some who thought the discussion of 

plant sexuality indelicate, but in general the English seem to have warmed to the theme, 

and Linnaean discussions were carried out with intermittent smirking good humour. A 

letter from the Rev. Samuel Goodenough, later Bishop of Carlisle, is often quoted: 

To tell you that nothing could equal the gross prurience of Linnaeus’s mind is 

perfectly needless. A literal translation of the first principles of Linnaean botany is 

enough to shock female modesty. 

But Goodenough was a founder member of the Linnean Society, a man who thought 

Linnaeus’ writing sublime, and his remark was probably tongue in cheek, especially as 

he went on to say: “It is possible that many virtuous students might not be able to make 

out the similitude of Clitoria”. 9 

The most famous treatment of the sexuality of plants came in Erasmus Darwin’s 

poem The Botanic Garden, the second part of which, The Loves of the Plants, a 

versified version of Linnaean classification, was published first in 1789. Darwin’s formula 

was anatomical personification: for each flower discussed, the pistil was treated as a 

nymph being courted by one or more swains, the anthers, with the jovial implication 

that plants lived lives of jolly polygamy. The success of Darwin’s poem was immense; 

one contemporary wrote that “It has silenced for ever the complaints of poets, who 

lament that Homer, Milton, Shakespeare and a few Classics had left nothing new to 

describe”. Among those who thoroughly approved of its discussion of plant sexuality 

was the poet Anna Seward, who seemed to endure the shock to her modesty with 

great equanimity. 10 

In the wake of Darwin came Robert John Thornton (ca.1768–1837), who 

celebrated Linnaeus in that most pointless and silly of major botanical publications, the 

New Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus, the ancestor of the modern 

coffee-table book. The great theme of Thornton’s work is the discovery of the sexuality

126 


of plants; the biggest single instalment of text is his essay on the subject; the portraits 

of botanists favour those who helped to impose the sexual system. 

The irony of the English enthusiasm for Linnaeus is that the establishment of the 

Linnean Society preceded by a single year the publication of Antoine-Laurent de 

Jussieu’s Genera Plantarum (1789), and the beginnings of the reaction against 

Linnaeus. European botanists sought to replace Linnaeus’ ‘artificial’ system with a 

‘natural classification’ that would establish the real relationships between plant genera, 

taking all the parts of the plant, not merely the sexual organs, into consideration. Jussieu’s 

work was publicised and added to by Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle and others, and in 

England by Robert Brown, John Lindley and William Jackson Hooker. Genera that had 

been previously established, but had been lumped together by Linnaeus, were once 

again distinguished. 11 Lindley was particularly vociferous, condemning Linnaeus’ system 

for its inconsistencies in grouping (e.g. plants with variable stamen numbers included in 

a single genus despite the obstacle this created to assigning the genus, ‘so that it is 

necessary to understand the Natural System, to make use of the Artificial System’). 12 

The result? People continued to teach the Linnaean system; it continued to be used in 

schools. Mind you, the fact that Lindley produced three different, conflicting versions 

of a system of natural classification during the course of his lifetime was probably not 

a good advertisement for the stability of such a system. 

The fact that alternatives to Linnaeus’ taxonomy were available, associated with 

great names in botany, and, at least on the continent, increasingly preferred to Linnaeus’, 

could not escape attention. As early as the 1780s, Pulteney’s original advertisement for 

his General view of the Writings of Linnaeus claimed: 

No system yet invented can stand a rigorous examination through all its parts, and 

Linnaeus was, perhaps, better acquainted than any other man with the defects of his 

own. 13 

Sir James Edward Smith lived long enough to see the triumph of Jussieu’s system on 

the continent, and wrote A Grammar of Botany (1821), in which he praised Jussieu, 

and argued that his and the Linnaean systems were really compatible. 

After the death of Willdenow in 1813, it is hard to think of any new botanical 

work initiated on the continent that relied on Linnaeus’ taxonomy, apart from such 

eccentricities as the Deutschlands Wildwachsende Arzney-pflanzen (1823–1828) 

by Johann Gottlieb Mann, a virtual autodidact. Further editions of Linnaeus’ Species 

Plantarum and Systema Vegetabilium continued to appear into the 1830s, before 

botanists finally gave up on them; by that time De Candolle’s Prodromus had been 

begun in an attempt to replace it. 

In England, on the other hand, the sexual system remained the basis of most 

botanical publishing well into the second quarter of the 19th century. Take, for instance, 

Aylmer Bourke Lambert’s Description of the Genus Pinus. Everything in the first 

edition (1803–7) was, as the title suggests, assigned to the genus Pinus, including 

Pinus larix and Pinus abies. For the 1828 edition, Lambert was assisted by David 

Don, and new genera were recognised for recently introduced trees: Araucaria, Thuja, 

Podocarpus, and Taxodium all appeared as separate genera, but as late as 1842 the 

cedars still appeared under Pinus – Pinus cedrus, Pinus deodora. Lindley himself


had to compromise with the Linnaean system, when in 1836 he was hired to finish 

Sibthorp’s Flora Graeca after Sir James Edward Smith’s death. 

And so it went. Works organised according to the Linnaean system continued to 

appear in England: James Wheeler’s Catalogus Rationalis Plantarum Medicinalium 

(1830), James Rennie’s Alphabet of Medical Botany (1834), James Forbes’ Journal 

of a Horticultural Tour through Germany &c (1837)… Mrs Bury’s Selection of 

Hexandrian Plants was issued from 1831 to 1834, at a time when the term Hexandria 

was a fading memory on the continent. Even where the author was a supporter of 

natural classification, Linnaean classification had to come first, as in John Claudius 

Loudon’s Hortus Britannicus (published in 1830, with supplements following up to 

1850). It was not until 1857 that Arthur Henfrey’s Elementary Course of Botany, the 

last textbook in England to list the Linnaean classes, could finally say that “the Linnaean 

System is seldom had recourse to, except as a means of furnishing an Artificial Key to 

the genera of a limited region”. 14 

So the Linnaean system of classification had survived in England for some 40 

years after it had fallen from favour on the continent. And the reason for this is that, 

since the latter end of the 18th century, Linnaeus had effectively been an English 

national treasure. 

References 

1. The image of the marine pursuit is taken from the plate depicting Sir James Edward Smith, in 

Thornton’s Botanical Extracts (Plate dated 1800). The passage from the memoir of Smith: 

Memoir and Correspondence of Sir James Edward Smith (1832) I, p. 26. For the details of 

what actually happened, see B. Daydon Jackson, Linnaeus (London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 

1923), pp. 345–57, and Wilfrid Blunt, The Compleat Naturalist (London: Collins, 1971), pp. 

236–8. 

2. The letter defending Acrel: Smith, op. cit., I, p. 127. The letter from Smith’s father: ibid., p. 97. 

3. Dillenius anecdote: Jackson, op. cit., pp. 156–8, and Blunt, op. cit., pp. 114–15, give slightly 

different versions. 

4. For the onward march of Linnaean thought in Europe, see Frans A. Stafleu, Linnaeus and the 

Linnaeans (Utrecht: International Association of Plant Taxonomy, 1971). 

5. Pulteney: General View of the Writings of Linnaeus, 2nd ed. (London: R. Taylor and Co., 

1805): pp. 47–48. 

6. Gorse episode: Jackson, op. cit., p. 158, and see p. 135 for Linnaeus having seen gorse in 

Germany. Smith tells the story in Smith and Sowerby, English Botany, plate 742. 

7. Donald Beaton, “My autobiography”, Cottage Gardener, vol. 13 (1853–54), pp. 153–8; the 

quotation is from p. 156. 

8. Pennant: History of Quadrupeds (1781) – cited Blunt p. 154. For Rousseau and Monboddo, 

see Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l’Origine et les Fondements de l’Inégalité parmi 

les Hommes (Amsterdam: Marc Michel Rey, 1755), and especially note 9, for the suggestion 

that the original form of man was similar to the “Orang-outang”; Lord Monboddo, Of the 

Origin and Progress of Language (Edinburgh: A. Kincaid, 1773), vol. I, p. 269, referring to 

the orang-utan as “in the first stage of the human progression”. 

9. Goodenough: Blunt, op. cit., p. 245. This is not one of the letters printed in Smith, Memoir and 

Correspondence, though there are plenty of others, which give substance to my suggestion 

that Goodenough’s comment was tongue-in-cheek. See A. T. Gage, A History of the Linnean

128 


Society of London (London: Taylor and Francis, 1938), p. 5–33 passim, for Goodenough’s 

activities in the Society. 

10. Desmond King-Hele, Doctor of Revolution: the Life and Genius of Erasmus Darwin (London: 

Faber and Faber, 1977), p. 197; the quotation is from Manning Edgeworth. 

11. Though since Species Plantarum is the official starting point for botanical nomenclature, it 

is the revivers rather than the original coiners of these names who are officially credited 

with them – so that, for example, we are said to owe Pelargonium to L’Héritier de Brutelle 

rather than to Tournefort. 

12. John Lindley, Ladies’ Botany, 2nd edition (London: James Ridgway and Sons, c.1835), pp. 

vi-viii. There is not yet a thorough history of natural classification, but a good beginning 

has been made in Peter F. Stevens, The Development of Biological Systematics (New York: 

Columbia University Press, 1994). 

13. For Pulteney’s original advertisement, see William George Maton’s preface to Pulteney, 2nd 

edition, op. cit., p. ix. 

14. Arthur Henfrey, Elementary Course of Botany (London: John Van Voorst, 1857), p. 199.


Linnaeus’ Lapland Herbarium in Paris 

Bengt Jonsell FMLS 

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 

Box 50005, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden 

The background 

Linnaeus’ Iter Lapponicum occurred between the 12 May and 10 October 1732. 

He celebrated his 25th birthday on the second day of his journey, which took him round 

the Bothnian Gulf with three expeditions inland. The second of those (6–30 July) was 

the most important, leading up into and through the mountains, down to the Atlantic 

coast of Norway. Only the 6–20 July was spent in the mountains or west of them at the 

coast, the rest of the journey took him over lowlands. Much has been written about this 

journey, and it has been explored from many angles – botanical, zoological, mineralogical, 

ethnographical, economical, to mention only the more prominent aspects. 

The journey was inspired by Linnaeus’ teachers in Uppsala, the professors Lars 

Roberg and Olof Rudbeck jr, especially the latter who had himself travelled in Lapland 

in 1695. A grant was given to Linnaeus by the Royal Society of Science in Uppsala. 

Linnaeus kept a diary throughout the journey, but of varying accuracy and with 

lacunae for certain passages. It was not published in his lifetime. The first printed 

edition is the translation into English initiated by Sir James Edward Smith and 

accomplished by a Swedish merchant in London, Carl Troilius. The scholarly and 

definitive edition of that diary was published in three volumes by Fries, Fries & Jacobsson 

(2003–2005). 

The only contemporary publication resulting from the journey, apart from a short 

plant list (Linnaeus 1732) is Flora Lapponica (Linnaeus 1737) one of his many major 

works printed in Holland. It is not really a flora of a restricted area, since it includes 

many species met outside Lapland (and a few not seen along the journey at all). But 

the most important contents deal with Lapland, with lots of information not only on 

botany, but about the usage of plants, not least among the Saamis (called Lapps by 

Linnaeus), their growing places, morphological features and much more. 

The herbarium and its scientific role 

A lesser known relic from the Lapland journey is the collection of about 260 plant 

specimens. There are few indications of plant collection in the diary. In the beginning 

“a heap of paper to put plants within” is mentioned among the equipment, and the text 

occasionally recommends “vide in sicco”, which indicates dried material. The extant 

pressed specimens are now found bound within covers in the library at the Institut de 

France in Paris, totally different from places where herbaria are normally preserved. 

The background is as follows. 

The plant collection from his Lapland journey was included in the wealth of 

scientific material that Linnaeus brought with him to Holland in 1735. The herbarium 

had probably formed one basis for the descriptions in Flora Lapponica. The connection 

is obvious since Linnaeus himself has written on the herbarium sheets figures in

130 


agreement with the number of the species in Flora Lapponica. The specimens are 

glued to writing paper (22 x 15 cm). They are usually small and of very varying quality, 

but are in general inferior to the material in the Linnaean collections at the Linnean 

Society of London. This is quite natural in view of the fact that they were collected 

during a long journey, when it was essential to gather only small samples, and with 

regard to storing them for transport home. 

Rather a few botanists have studied this herbarium. The first and most important 

was Professor Thore M. Fries, of Uppsala, the well-known biographer of Linnaeus 

who, in 1861, published an annotated list of contents (Fries 1861) which still constitutes 

the basis for our knowledge of this herbarium. Later the Swedish priest, S.J. Enander, 

a specialist on Salix, wrote a brief report (Enander 1910) and A.H.G. Alston of the 

British Museum (Natural History) produced a microfilm (Alston 1957). William Stearn 

commented on the herbarium in the facsimile edition of Species Plantarum (Stearn 

1957) and emphasised its importance for typification of those binary names in Species 

Plantarum, which were given to plants first described in Flora Lapponica. In recent 

times B. Jonsell and C.E. Jarvis have consulted the collection for Flora Nordica and 

the Linnaean Plant Name Typification Project (Jonsell & Jarvis 2002, Jarvis 2007). 

Two sets of colour transparencies were produced, one now at the Natural History 

Museum (Department of Botany), London, and the other at the Museum of Evolution, 

Uppsala University. 

Far from all the species in Flora Lapponica are represented in the herbarium. 

We shall never know whether the 

others have been lost or never existed. 

It is striking that all cryptogams, 

including all ferns, are lacking. They 

are the last plant species, nos. 380– 

534, in the Flora (nos. 535–537 are 

recorded by Linnaeus as “Lithophyta”). 

Of the 379 phanero-gamic 

species in the Flora about 130 are 

Figure 1. Linnaea borealis from the 

Lapland herbarium is the lectotype of 

the species name and the type of the 

generic name. Campanula serpillifolia 

was the name replaced by “Linnaea 

floribus geminatis Gronovii” in the plate 

caption of Flora Lapponica. The 

account of the text is headed “Planta 

nostra”.


Figure 2. The specimen of Parnassia 

palustris in the Lapland herbarium. The 

number is in Linnaeus’ handwriting, the 

text relating to Flora Lapponica probably 

by Johannes Burman. 

Fries (1861) also emphasised 

that many species could not have been 

collected in Lapland, nor in northern 

Sweden or Finland at all. They may 

of course have been collected during 

the journey north or south, but some 

of them could not possibly have been 

gathered along the route. Since 

Linnaeus does not give any localities 

no certainty can be reached. One 

example is no. 304, Arnica montana 

for which Linnaeus in Flora 

Lapponica gives “Smolandia” as its 

growing place. He includes it because 

missing. It is difficult to give an exact 

number due to some uncertainties 

about the connection between a 

specimen and the Flora. Fries (1861) 

pointed especially to difficulties within 

the genus Salix. As a rule the 

agreement is, however, good, thanks 

to the numbers that Linnaeus noted 

both on the sheets and in the Flora. 

Figure 3. The specimen of Rubus arcticus 

in the Lapland herbarium. The figure by 

Linnaeus, the text probably by Johannes 

Burman.

132 


Figure 4. The account of Rubus arcticus in Flora Lapponica (2 pages of a little more than 3) 

showing in what detail some species are treated in that work, which has more elaborate 

treatments of species than any other Linnaean Flora. 

Rudbeck jr thought he had observed it growing in Lapland, which Linnaeus refutes in 

a comment as a confusion with Arnica alpina, no. 305. The specimen 304 is undoubtedly 

Arnica montana and must have been added to the Lapland collection after the return 

to Uppsala (although perhaps collected much earlier). 

As a rule Linnaeus collected only one specimen of each species, which was quite 

natural given the circumstances. There are, however, in the Linnean Society of London 

specimens that appear as duplicates, since they, too, have the Flora Lapponica number 

in Linnaeus’ handwriting. They are often of better quality and larger than those in 

Paris. That is somewhat enigmatic and it cannot be excluded that they are specimens 

of Flora Lapponica species which Linnaeus acquired later and gave the Flora 

Lapponica number. 

Most specimens in the Lapland herbarium can be regarded as “original elements”, 

that is, specimens that can be considered as types for names in Species Plantarum 

(Linnaeus 1753) provided there is a reference to Flora Lapponica. Owing to various 

shortcomings among the Lapland specimens, some of which are mentioned above, 

they usually have to give way to specimens from other herbaria. All the same, about 25 

specimens, i.e. ca. 10 % of the total number of sheets, have been chosen as lectotypes


Figure 5. Two orchid species on the same 

sheet of the Lapland herbarium, Listera 

ovata and L. cordata. Only the latter is 

treated in Flora Lapponica, as No. 316, 

which exemplifies that occasionally 

species not met with on the Lapland 

journey have been added to the 

herbarium. 

for Linnaean species names, among them “herba nostra”, Linnaea borealis. A complete 

list of the herbarium specimens with names in Latin and Swedish, as well as references 

to Flora Lapponica, was given by Jonsell & Jarvis (2003) in the Iter Lapponicum 

edition. 

After Linnaeus’ Holland years 

The further fate of the Lapland herbarium is rather peculiar. When in Holland 

Linnaeus promised to deliver it as a gift to his friend Johannes Burman (1707–1779), 

who had been most helpful to Linnaeus in many respects. He saw to it that manuscripts 

were printed, that fruitful contacts were made in the learned world and he sorted out 

various complications that occurred (Uggla 1937). One ‘thank you’ for such assistance 

would be the Lapland herbarium, but in the end, Linnaeus left Holland in 1738 bringing 

the herbarium back with him to Sweden. One month after his return to Sweden, 11 

October 1738, Linnaeus sent a letter to Burman, in which he apologises for not having 

presented him with the Lapland plants. He even confesses that he has been obliged to 

give specimens to persons to whom he could not deny them, and adds that he has now 

collected new specimens of all those species. They will arrive later that autumn or in 

the spring at the latest, Linnaeus concludes. In his reply Burman is friendly but wondering, 

a bit maliciously, how it could have been possible to collect all those new specimens 

“without exception” as Linnaeus wrote, in such a short time, and from Lapland. A 

letter from Burman of 7 April 1739 says that the collection had still not arrived with 

him. When they did arrive is not known, because of a lacuna of over 15 years in the

134 


correspondence between Linnaeus and Burman. They were, however, extant in the 

property left by Nicolaas Burman (1753–1793), the son of Johannes. After the death 

of Nicolaas’ wife in 1810 the Burman library and collections were purchased by 

Benjamin Delessert (1773–1847), an industrialist, banker and amateur botanist. After 

his death all herbaria in his possession were delivered to the Botanical Garden in Geneva 

and the library to Institut de France in Paris. Since the Lapland herbarium had been 

bound within hard covers and appeared to be a book it went with the library. 

No specimens in the present collections make an obvious impression of having 

been added after the journey. The specimens are, as already mentioned, small and 

seem to be arranged similarly throughout. Only the Flora Lapponica numbers seem 

to have been written by Linnaeus. The phrase names from Flora Lapponica, usually 

in the upper part of the sheets, are in the handwriting of J. Burman. 

The lack of cryptogams (including ferns), as mentioned previously, and some 

other Flora Lapponica species, may be explained by the gifts Linnaeus wrote about 

to Burman. The promise to replace those specimens was apparently never fulfilled. 

References 

Alston, A. H. G. 1957. A Linnaean Herbarium in Paris. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of 

London 168: 102–103. 

Enander, S. 1910. Ett Linnéherbarium i Paris. Botaniska Notiser 1910: 203. 

Fries, S., Fries, I. & Jacobsson, R. 2003 – 2005. Iter lapponicum. Lappländska resan. Vol. 1–3. 

Umeå. 

Fries. Th. M. 1861. Anteckningar rörande en i Paris befintlig linneansk växtsamling. Öfversikt af 

Kongl. Vetenskapsakademiens Förhandlingar 18: 255–272. 

Jarvis, C. 2007. Order out of Chaos: Linnaean Plant Names and their Types. London. 

Jonsell, B. & Jarvis, C. E. 2002. Lectotypifications of Linnaean names for Flora Nordica. Nordic 

Journal of Botany 22: 145–164. 

Linnaeus, C. 1732. Florula lapponica quae continet brevem catalogum plantarum. Acta Literaria 

et Scientiarum Sueciae 3 : 46–58. 

Linnaeus, C. 1737. Flora Lapponica. Amsterdam. 


Stearn, W. T. 1957. Linnaean Herbaria. In C. Linnaeus, Species Plantarum, A facsimile of the 

first edition 1753, Vol. 1 with an introduction by W. T. Stearn: 103–124. London. 

Uggla, A. H. 1937. Linné och Burmannerna. Svenska Linnésällskapets Årsskrift 20: 128–144.


The conservation of iconic objects 

and Linnaeus’ books and wallpaper 

Per Cullhed 

Senior Conservator and Director of the Cultural Heritage Library Group, 

Uppsala University Library, Box 510, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden 

This paper concerns conservation in general and specifically, just as the title 

implies, those objects that have attained an iconic status, i.e. they not only have an 

intrinsic value, but they also touch a concept of holiness and great admiration. Their 

existence gives us associations to the roots of our history and the preservation of such 

objects is complex in the sense that any conservation measures taken may lock the 

past into our own sense of how this past should look, or even worse, as the object may 

deteriorate, the lack of preservation may also block out the past completely. The objects 

I will be concentrating on are, of course, books from the Uppsala University Library’s 

Linnaean collections and also the botanical prints which Linnaeus put on the walls of 

the bedroom in his summer cottage at Hammarby, not far from Uppsala. 

Linnaeus’ times, his legacy, as well as the objects which were left behind after 

his death can certainly be said to have attained an iconic status. If we compare them to 

other objects from a conservation point of view, we find similarities. Saint Göran and 

the Dragon is one important Swedish example. This is a wooden sculpture dated 1489, 

which can be found in Storkyrkan in Stockholm. The sculpture was commissioned to 

commemorate Sten Sture’s victory over the Danish army in the battle of Brunkeberg 

1471 and ever since it has been a symbol of Swedish independence, and especially so 

during late the 19th century and early 20th century nationalism movement. The wooden 

sculpture is in a fairly good shape but during its past, prior to debates on how to conserve 

it, it had been treated several times. Another example is the warship Wasa that also 

has an iconic value, both as a unique artefact from the 17th century and as a symbol 

for the young nation with aspirations of becoming a strong power on the European 

scene. Perhaps it also serves as a symbol of the shortcomings of these aspirations as 

the ship sank on its maiden voyage. The conservation of the ship was costly and time 

consuming, with long committee meetings also a part of the planning for conservation, 

which ever since 1962 has caused fierce controversies about suitable techniques and 

treatments. In an international context, the conservation of Leonardo’s masterpiece 

“The last supper”, a painting which in itself bore a self-destructive structure, has also 

caused endless debates during its history of conservation, more than 20 years postsecond 

World War. All three examples are linked by the fact that their conservation 

has attracted a lot of interest from many experts and inevitably loud debates on the 

best treatment options. This characterises and paralyses the treatments of some of our 

most important objects – the iconic objects. 

In this context one may have to ask oneself when is an object old enough to be a 

candidate to put on the “iconic” pedestal? In general, an object which is 150 years old 

or more is often regarded as an artefact. Our memory can stretch back to our

136 


grandparents i.e. 100 years, but 150 years is considered to be “really old” and if we 

take a look at our traditions in libraries of naming collections “special collections” 150 

years is often the boundary set for “special collection” library material. In the case of 

iconic objects, depending on their uniqueness, historical context and importance, these 

can reach an artifactual value much more quickly. Common for all objects is that they 

become fragile with age, disregarding their value. 

A current conservation project at the Uppsala University Library is the collection 

of books that were given back to Sweden from the Linnean Society. They have been 

housed both at Hammarby and the University Library due to a long tradition of 

manuscript librarians such as Arvid Uggla and Carl Otto von Sydow having had a 

special interest in Linnaeus. In connection with the tercentenary celebrations funds 

were raised for the conservation of these books. During the last two years the cataloguing 

and conservation have been carried out simultaneously and the books have also been 

transferred to safe storage. The books are now also being catalogued as a part of the 

Linnaeus Link Project which is carried out together with, among others, the Linnean 

Society and the Natural History Museum in London. 

The collection contains an interesting variety of books, many of which have been 

interleaved and filled with notations on useful things such as gardening and different 

cures for illnesses, as well as proverbs serving as a guide for young students. Apart 

from the interesting information that can be gathered from the mere choice of titles, 

the books are also full of notations and systematic tables and are worthy of more 

thorough study, which will soon be less problematic due to the conservation of the 

books. Re-backing of a leather binding is one treatment option often used when the 

hinges of the leather spine are completely broken down. The original spine is always 

kept and put back on the book. 

The books were extremely dirty, a remnant from a time when heating was often 

local and involved some kind of combustion process. Be it coal, gas or wood, London 

or Stockholm, the books bear traces of times when particle pollution must have been 

abundant and nothing could be done to protect libraries from being contaminated. Prior 

to conservation, a cleaning process was deemed absolutely necessary. It was carried 

out partly by using different dry cleaning techniques and partly by using a mild emulsion 

of tensides and water, with a similarly gentle application of the substance as a foam. 

This treatment has, among other things, stopped the transfer of dirt from the covers to 

the text-block. 

In book-conservation, leather has traditionally been used for both re-backing and 

the covering of cracks and blemishes. Before re-backing the leather is dyed using light 

fast dyes mixed to a shade that will blend reasonably with the original leather. Leather 

consists of three different layers of the animal skin, the middle or corium layer being 

the most important for the long-term flexibility and durability of the material. The 

necessary paring, or thinning down of the leather is done by machine and by hand, the 

normal leathers being calf, goat or sheep. These leathers are sometimes pared down to 

a thickness of approximately 0.5 mm. However, if extremely thin layers are needed, 

for example in the covering of cracks, the skin has to be thinned out to an extent that it 

looses its strength. To overcome this problem, conservators have started using 

alternatives to leather.


One example of this practise is to use thin but strong Japanese paper to reinforce 

cracks and to build up new headcaps if these have been lost. Japanese paper is a longfibred 

tissue with excellent durability, flexibility and strength and has been the main 

working method employed during the conservation of Linnaeus’ books. The reasons 

for using this method are quite convincing since it will make a strong but still thin repair, 

the paper can be tinted and surface treated to blend in with the leather. The repair is 

quite reversible if for some reason one would like to remove the repair in the future. 

Let us go back to Hammarby, Linnaeus’ summer cottage, which he acquired in 

1758. Linnaeus was quite aware of the risks of storing combustible materials and he 

kept his collections apart from the living quarters, in what he called “his museum” – a 

stone building on a hilltop near to the main building at Hammarby. The reason for doing 

this was most certainly due to the less fortunate fate of the collections of his predecessor 

as a professor of medicine in Uppsala, Olof Rudbeck, who, when the wooden printblocks 

of his great botanical book were devoured by the flames, lost a lifetime’s work 

in the Uppsala fire of 1702. After the fire Olof Rudbeck claimed himself and his wife 

to be as poor as when they lay in the cradle and, devastated, he died later that year. In 

building his museum, Linnaeus actually employed the protective technique of fire 

compartmentalisation for his collections, an age-old method, and still fundamental to 

the protection of collections in museums, libraries and archives. 

Linnaeus’ correspondence, or net-working as would probably be the modern way 

of describing his many national and international contacts, brought him a large array of 

publications and specimens from all over the world. Among the works he enjoyed the 

most were Georg Dionysius Ehret’s pictures of plants published in Plantae Selectae 

from 1750. Linnaeus’ personal friendship with Ehret was certainly one reason for him 

to admire the prints, but they also stand out as among the most beautiful pictures of 

flowers and plants ever made and he had them pasted on the walls of his bedroom. In 

doing so, he deliberately put them at risk, even explaining that he did not care if they 

were destroyed. As long as he lived he wanted to enjoy the pictures. 

The earliest photographs we have from his bedroom are those of Emma Schenson, 

published in the 1860s by Elias Fries in a photographic album to the honour of Linnaeus. 

Judging from these pictures, it is obvious that the prints had suffered damage already in 

the 19th century, probably due to neglect in the first half of the 1800s. 

There are a few notations on early attempts of conservation of the prints. Already, 

from when the property was acquired by the Swedish State in 1879, there is a notation 

that some damaged prints were cut down and replaced with new ones. This technique 

was also employed in the conservation carried out in 1937, but documentation of the 

treatment is scarce and sometimes only scribbled down on pieces of cardboard, later 

found in a drawer. A comparison of the state of decay in the 1860s and in 2005 shows 

similarities, however, and many prints have darkened considerably during the last century. 

The Swedish National Property Board has carried out extensive research into 

the climate of the house and preliminary data from these measurements show that the 

house follows the normal fluctuations in temperature and humidity, but the hygroscopic 

materials in the walls and paper retain a slightly higher water content in comparison to 

the indoor air. The results also show that the season with the highest water content is 

in early autumn. In this period the relative humidity level can be above 70%, not,

138 


however, during prolonged periods, which in itself is a risk for visible outbreaks of 

mould. Still, such a high level of humidity has probably contributed heavily to the 

breakdown of the paper. A comparison with a bound version of Plantae Selectae at 

the Uppsala University Library clearly shows that the main damage is to the brittle 

paper, staining from different sources and, perhaps most obvious of all factors, damage 

from exposure to light. The colours in the library copy still remain bright and clear. 

In a survey of damage to the four walls in the bedroom, named A, B, C, and D, 

the initial impressions of the damage mentioned above have been confirmed and show 

that the paper is to a large extent, hydrolyzed, which means that it is brittle and may 

break easily. This became obvious when a bird managed to enter the room and in 

colliding with the D-wall, caused a lacuna in one of the prints. 

If we take a closer look at some of the prints in Hammarby, cracks are a typical 

sign of damage and are the result of movements of the wooden house. A general 

brownish colour is probably due to discoloration from the lignin in the logs, a phenomenon 

one sometimes sees in prints mounted on cardboard also containing lignin. On the 

Cereus, or cactus flower, one can clearly see the effects of bleaching so common to 

many of the organic dyes used in the 18th century. Many dyes have changed their hues 

due partly to the bleaching effects of light, but probably also to the complex chemistry 

of the prints interacting with their environment. 

The Musa or bananas have a prominent place on the wall facing the entrance to 

the bedroom. Bananas were highly valued as a novelty in Europe and one of the 

triumphs of Linnaeus as a gardener, was to grow bananas at George Clifford’s 

Hartekamp in Holland. Light damage is most prominent on this fruit where, especially, 

the green has turned into brown, a phenomenon sometimes seen in copper containing 

green colours. The brownish discoloration which can be seen on the Cedar tree-print 

was there already in the 1860s. However, the browning of the paper may have been 

emphasised by later treatments with paste containing alum or gelatine which have 

been used to attach a thin layer of silk, a conservation method first presented at the 

first international conference on conservation in St Gallen in 1898 by the Cardinal 

Franz Ehrle, then responsible for the Vatican Library’s conservation. 

In 2005 the National Property Board, which has the ultimate responsibility for 

preserving the building, arranged a seminar to discuss different treatment options, a 

procedure which is very common for iconic objects like Linnaeus’ house. If we describe 

the results from this seminar in a simplistic way one might say that it resulted in a 

dichotomy where some proposed that nothing should be done to the wallpaper and 

others suggested treatments which included taking the prints down for conservation. I 

call this way of arguing conservation clusters – a gathering of two opposing opinions, 

with very few in between, a human behaviour which is recognisable to anyone. 

Many of us would probably agree that one of the most valued characteristics of 

his wallpaper is that Linnaeus wanted to furnish his bedroom in this manner. However 

we may also rest assured that the room does not look like it did in the 18th century. We 

can find 20th century wrapping paper in some of the mends and we know that prints 

have been taken down and others put up, but it is all too easy to delude ourselves and 

uncritically say that this is the way Linnaeus arranged his walls. They have been 

touched too many times for this to be true. In general the seminar did agree that the


prints should be kept on the walls, to take them down and store them at some other 

place would make no sense. 

The controversies started when the treatment methods were discussed and the 

greatest concern was if the prints needed to be taken down for treatment. The weakness 

of the paper supports the notion of taking them down to strengthen them; the difficulty 

in doing this speaks against it. The importance of any decision made raises the 

temperature of such discussions – this is typical for the conservation of iconic objects. 

The best way of sorting out all these difficult questions is to put together a risk 

assessment which will answer questions such as “has the improper backing played a 

role in the degradation process and if so to what extent”. If we answer yes to this 

question and if we think that this is a serious problem we can position this issue in the 

‘red’ area of a risk assessment chart. Furthermore, if we think that there is a way to 

lower the influence of this specific risk, there is a possibility to move the issue into the 

green area of the chart. If we combine the risk assessment with immediate voting 

between alternatives with a green or red card we can avoid the conservation clusters 

and consequently also the decision-making paralysis as we go through all the relevant 

issues. It is at the end that it becomes obvious how the voters independently regard 

each question. Let me give you an example with the following question “is the current 

humidity level dangerous to the prints?” If we are presented with 10 green cards and 

two reds, the reds indicate that this question must be further analysed. If we are shown 

12 green cards – this question has no relevance and can be left aside. A risk assessment 

seminar for Linnaeus wallpapers did take place during the summer of 2007 and managed 

to break up the dichotomies to such an extent that it was decided that it was necessary 

to strengthen the wallpaper. As a start for this project a team of paper conservators 

starting their work during 2008 will conserve the D-wall. 

“Youth is full of sport, age’s breath is short.” Shakespeare’s words can be a 

metaphor not only for man but also for the objects of mankind. This includes the objects 

of iconic value as they are liable to break down just as any other object and they also 

deserve the very best of care. A good decision-making process and skilful treatment 

can give them that care.

140 



The Linnean collections at Uppsala University 

Roland Moberg FLS 

Evolutionsbiologiskt centrum EBA, 

Norbyv, 16, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden 

It is well known that the main collections Linnaeus had gathered during his lifetime 

were sold to James Edward Smith in England, where they became the foundation of 

the Linnean Society of London. However, there is considerable material left at Uppsala 

University with close connection to Linnaeus. 

At the time when Linnaeus assumed his professorship of medicine and botany in 

1741 Uppsala University had no actual natural history collections. After that, a series 

of donations during 1740–1750 formed the basis of a museum of natural history 

(Museum Naturalium Academiae Upsaliensis). These donations were well 

documented and formally registered by the University Board. Linnaeus also described 

the material in some dissertations which were, as usual, defended by his disciples. The 

relationship between this material and Linnaeus’ own material, collected together with 

the material sent to him as gifts from scientists around the world, and the material his 

“apostles” collected for him during their foreign travels, does not seem to have been 

formalised. Most of the material was evidently incorporated into Linnaeus’ private 

collection rather than with that of the University museum. However, after a fire in 

Uppsala in 1768 the two collections became physically separated as a consequence of 

Linnaeus’ decision to move his material to Hammarby, where he built his own museum 

(Museum in altis) in 1769. The remaining material was housed in the buildings at the 

Botanical Garden (now the Linnaeus Garden) where it had been during the whole 

Linnaeus period. 

Later donations and collections housed in other parts of the university at the time 

of Linnaeus now constitute the Linnaean material of Uppsala University housed in the 

Museum of Evolution. 

Botanical material 

The oldest collection is Joachim Burser’s Hortus Siccus or the “Burser 

Herbarium”, as it is called for practical reasons. Originally it consisted of plant material 

bound in 26 volumes. The volumes primarily contain plants from Central Europe, but 

one of them is devoted entirely to Danish plants. This plant collection was created in 

the early 17th century and had been brought to Sweden from Denmark as war booty. 

In Linnaeus’ day, the Burser Herbarium was kept at the University Library and was 

thus available to him. It is therefore regarded as original material for Linnaeus’ plant 

descriptions. The herbarium contains more than 3,000 pages, roughly 10% of which 

have been selected by modern-day researchers as principal representatives (lectotypes) 

for Linnaeus’ names (see also C. Jarvis, Order out of Chaos, 2007). 

When Linnaeus had been in Uppsala almost one year he met the dean Olof 

Celsius – who was working on the flora of the Province of Uppland and had collected 

considerable material which he had included in leather-bound volumes named Flora

142 


Uplandica. Linnaeus now became involved in helping Celsius to complete the work. 

Finally it included six volumes, containing 711 pressed plants, primarily gathered by 

Celsius, but some with writing by Linnaeus, which proves that he had access to the 

whole work. 

Queen Lovisa Ulrika financially supported some of Linnaeus’ “apostles” and 

was given sets of plant material which were later donated to Uppsala University and 

are now named Queen Lovisa Ulrika’s herbarium. This consists of North American 

plants collected by Pehr Kalm (see Thunbergia 19, 1993) and Palestinian plants collected 

by Fredrik Hasselquist. This material is duplicates of material in the Linnean collection 

in London. 

There are also some hundred sheets with the hand of Linnaeus on them which 

are kept separate, together with the above mentioned collections in the strongroom of 

the museum. 

Zoological material 

Although there is no plant material in the remaining Museum Naturalium 

Academiae Upsaliensis, there are almost 300 zoological preparations, half of which 

are judged to have been studied by Linnaeus. 

Further Linnaeus material came to Uppsala in 1803, in the form of a donation 

from King Gustav IV Adolf, that included his paternal grandmother’s, Queen Lovisa 

Ulrika’s, collection of conchilia (that is, seashells and mussel shells), insects, plants 

(see above), fossils, and minerals. Linnaeus had once worked on parts of this collection. 

The total number of objects in the zoological Linnaeus collection (including Gustav 

IV Adolf’s donation, etc.) is now more than 2,700. The number of species registered is 

Figure 1. Lemming, Lemmus lemmus, captured 1732 by Linnaeus at Virihaure, 

Province of Lapland. Length 13 cm.


Figure 2. Mole, Talpa europaea, captured 1749 by Linnaeus at Skillinge, 

Province of Skåne. Length 12 cm. 

1,303, but this figure is uncertain since many specimens have not been subjected to 

review in terms of their classification. 

As William Stearn suggested we also count the type of Homo sapiens to be 

present in Uppsala Cathedral. 

Mineralogical material 

Linnaeus’ mineral observations were based on material he gathered on his journeys 

to the Bergslagen mining region. His mineral collection was part of the material sold to 

England but, as mentioned, Gustav IV Adolf donated Queen Lovisa Ulrika’s collections 

to Uppsala University in 1803. On these, Linnaeus writes: 

The other part of Your Majesty’s rich collection, namely, the magnificent Corals, the 

clear Crystals, and the rich Ores, I have left to be the work of another day. 

His intention was apparently never followed up. Today these minerals are an 

integral part of the mineral collection at the Museum of Evolution.

144 



Linnaeus’ specimens of mammals and birds 

Anthea Gentry FLS 

Scientific Associate, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, 

London SW7 5BD, U.K.; “Littlewood”, Copyhold Lane, Cuckfield, 

Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH17 5EB, U.K. 

Introduction 

For the past few years I have been working on the extensive and historic 

collections of mammals and birds used by Linnaeus in describing many new taxa. The 

specimens of these two groups have not hitherto been studied and the work will make 

known the specimens seen by Linnaeus, their identity in the light of modern taxonomy, 

and will provide descriptions and coloured photographs. 

Much of the material originates from the natural history cabinet of King Adolf 

Fredrik (1710–1771) and the collection of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 

(Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien or KVA) in Stockholm and is now kept in the 

Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet in Stockholm. A lesser amount of material is in the 

Evolutionsmuseet, University of Uppsala, and this includes specimens given by Adolf 

Fredrik to the University Museum in 1745, a series of donations in Linnaeus’ time and 

Linnaeus’ own material. Together the present day Stockholm and Uppsala collections 

include specimens which were studied and described by Linnaeus of some 55 species 

each of mammals and birds. 

Housing the collections 

Lovisa Ulrika (1720–1782; Fig. 1), younger sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia, 

arrived in Sweden in August 1744. She was already married to Crown Prince Adolf 

Fredrik although they had never met; the bridegroom’s place at the wedding in Berlin 

had been taken by her younger brother 

(Laine, 1998). The marriage was celebrated 

in the Hall of State at Drottningholm Palace 

on the island of Lovön, west of Stockholm, 

and soon afterwards the Swedish King 

Fredrik I transferred the fief of Drottningholm 

to Lovisa Ulrika. 

In the middle of the 18th century it was 

fashionable among the European aristocracy 

to have personal collections of curiosities, 

Figure 1. Queen Lovisa Ulrika painted by Lorentz 

Pasch the Younger in 1767. The National Museum 

of Fine Arts, Stockholm, Drh 501.

146 


Figure 2. Drottningholm Palace. 

artefacts and articles of value. Both the Crown Prince and his wife had collections and 

for the royal couple this was an enterprise driven by the desire to amass material of the 

most rare, conspicuous and interesting objects. Both had natural history cabinets, Lovisa 

Ulrika’s consisting mainly of dried invertebrate and plant material at Drottningholm 

Palace, Adolf Fredrik’s consisting mostly of vertebrate material in alcohol at Ulriksdal 

Palace to the northeast of Stockholm. 

Drottningholm Palace as it now stands mostly dates from the end of the 17th 

century (Fig. 2). Queen Hedvig Eleonora, widow of Charles X (1622–1660), 

commissioned Tessin the Elder, royal architect since 1646, to build a new palace on the 

site of the previous royal manor destroyed by fire at Christmas 1661, soon after the 

Queen had bought it. The new Palace and its gardens became one of the most extensive 

and costly building projects to be undertaken in Sweden at the time. Work on the 

building, its Baroque interiors and gardens was continued by Tessin the Younger after 

his father’s death in 1681. On taking over use of the palace, Lovisa Ulrika instructed 

the architect Carl Hårleman to add a new storey to the existing wings surrounding 

courtyards on each side of the main building (Brown et al., 1997). Work began in 1747 

and created on the north side a line of five rooms to accommodate her increasing 

collections of coins, medals, antiquities and natural history objects. A picture gallery 

was made to house part of the Queen’s collection of French, Dutch, English and Swedish 

art. Books were housed in the small room in the northwest corner of the building but in 

1760 Lovisa Ulrika employed Jean Eric Rehn, architect, designer and drawing master 

to the Royal children, to transform the picture gallery into a larger library, to furnish the 

natural history room (Fig. 3), and to redecorate elsewhere in the Rococo style. 

Ulriksdal Palace was built in about 1640 in Renaissance style for Jacob de la 

Gardie, the Constable of the Realm. Queen Hedvig Eleanor purchased it from him in 

1669. The building has been much altered and its present appearance dates from the 

first half of the 18th century (Fig. 4). King Adolf Fredrik and his Queen used the 

Palace but it is not now known where the King’s collections were kept. 

After the King’s death in 1771 the collection at Ulriksdal was moved in 1773 to


Figure 3. The natural history 

room at Drottningholm Palace. 

join that at Drottningholm. In 1777 Drottningholm and its collections were purchased 

by the Swedish State. In 1801, Conrad Quensel, curator at the KVA, persuaded King 

Gustav IV, grandson of Adolf Fredrik and Lovisa Ulrika, to hand over his grandfather’s 

specimens in alcohol to the Academy. The collection, which included many mammals 

and birds, was incorporated into the Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet in 1828 and became 

the property of the museum in 1965. The remainder of the collections from Drottningholm, 

mostly dried material from Lovisa Ulrika’s cabinet and also a few dried specimens 

originally at Ulriksdal, went to the Uppsala University Museum in 1803. 

Figure 4. Ulriksdal Palace. 

The KVA was founded in 1739 as an independent scientific society, primarily by 

Linnaeus who became its first curator. Until 1829 it was housed in what is now no. 30, 

Stora Nygatan in Stockholm. An unpublished inventory in 1788 by C.F. Hornstedt, then 

curator, lists the small collection of specimens before the arrival of King Adolf Fredrik’s 

cabinet in 1801. Further unpublished inventories were produced by the curators C. 

Quensel in 1800 and 1803, O.F. Swartz in 1809, and (dried specimens only) J.W. 

Dalman in 1823. Unpublished inventories which included the King’s material after its 

incorporation into the Museum collections were put together by Sundevall between 

1857 and 1859 and by Bergström in 1942. 

Linnaeus’ own natural history specimens were kept at his home in Uppsala and 

later at Hammarby, an estate some four kilometres southeast of Uppsala dating from

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the 1630s and purchased by Linnaeus in 1758. He built a new family home and 

subsequently a small stone store, to house his collections and books, which was 

completed in 1769. 

Linnaeus’ study of the collections and his publications 

In 1744 Crown Prince Adolf Fredrik and Lovisa Ulrika visited Linnaeus in Uppsala, 

where he had been appointed Professor of Medicine in 1741, and in 1745 Adolf Fredrik 

donated natural history duplicates from his collection to the University Museum. Linnaeus 

and his student Laurent Balk published a dissertation on this material in 1746, Museum 

Adolpho-Fridericianum, the first publication to describe material in the Royal 

collections.This was republished in the series Amoenitates Academicae in 1749. 

In 1751 Adolf Fredrik became King and in the same year Lovisa Ulrika asked 

Linnaeus to study the collections at both Ulriksdal and Drottningholm. Linnaeus made 

four visits to Drottningholm in 1751 and 1752, spending a total of 13 weeks on the 

work, and three visits to Ulriksdal in 1753 and 1754, totalling nine weeks. Additional 

visits to Drottningholm were made in 1754, 1766 and 1770 (Lovén, 1887). Linnaeus’ 

publication on part of the King’s vertebrate material appeared in 1754, S:ae R:ae 

M:tis Museum Adolphi Frederici Regis, in a large folio with copper plates by Jean 

Eric Rehn and Olaf von Dalin, engraved by Jacob Gillberg (there are unfortunately no 

illustrations of birds and only two reproduced paintings of live mammals). The text is in 

Latin and Swedish in adjoining columns – the Swedish version at the King’s request. 

The second part of the King’s material was published in 1764, in conjunction with the 

Queen’s invertebrate material, in octavo, Latin only and without illustrations, the delay 

having been caused by a shortage of funds in the Royal household. 

The earlier 1754 account of the King’s material was incorporated in the 10th 

edition of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae of 1758, which is the basis of modern zoological 

nomenclature, and in the second edition of the Fauna Svecica (1761), and both the 

1754 and 1764 accounts were included in the larger 12th edition of the Systema Naturae 

(1766). Additional material was published in the animal appendix to the Mantissa 

Plantarum (1771). The existence of specimens in the King’s collection and their 1754 

or 1764 descriptions were recorded in the 10th and 12th editions of the Systema Naturae 

by the notation “Mus. Ad. Fr.” with the relevant page number. 

Origins of the material in the collections 

Very little information is available on the origins of the mammals and birds in the 

King’s cabinet, probably because it was a private collection for which no records were 

kept. However, for a few specimens, and for a few in the KVA, the donor and the 

geographical provenance may be put forward with some certainty. 

The collection in Uppsala is better documented, the specimens and their donors 

(Adolf Fredrik when Crown Prince, Claudius Grill, Magnus Lagerström, Jonas Alströmer, 

King Gustav IV and Linnaeus himself) having been documented first by Linnaeus’ 

successor at the University, Thunberg (1787), followed by Lönnberg (1896; includes 

birds but not mammals), Holm (1957) and Wallin (1994). 

I give here a few examples of specimens from the Stockholm and Uppsala 

collections.


Daniel Rolander (1725–1793), a pupil 

of Linnaeus and one of his so-called 

Apostles, was an entomologist. In 1755 he 

went for a year to Surinam, then a Dutch 

colony. On his return he sold his journal and 

much of his plant material to a botanist at 

the University of Copenhagen, who 

published descriptions of the specimens. 

Some of Rolander’s material went into the 

collections of the KVA. An excellent 

specimen in alcohol of a male spectral bat, 

NRM 532015 in Stockholm (Fig. 5), is 

probably that described by Linnaeus (1758) 

as Vespertilio spectrum (currently 

Vampyrum spectrum). Linnaeus credited 

the locality (“America australi”), but not the 

description, of the specimen to Rolander. 

Linnaeus’s description is detailed and 

accurate and he clearly had access to a 

specimen. 

Pehr Kalm (1716–1779) was also a 

pupil and Apostle of Linnaeus. He travelled 

to North America in 1748 and on his return 

to Sweden in 1751 brought back a vast 

Figure 5. Spectral bat, Vampyrum spectrum 

(Linnaeus 1758), NRM 532015. 

collection of plants and seeds which he divided between Linnaeus, the KVA and, in 

1754, Queen Lovisa Ulrika. The remainder of Kalm’s collection was lost in 1827 in the 

fire which destroyed Åbo (Turku), his home town. The return of animal material by 

Kalm is recorded in a number of places (letter to Linnaeus from Philadelphia dated 5 

December 1750, published in Bref och skrifvelser af och till Carl Linné, vol 1, pp. 1– 

8; the first part “Genera Americae septemtrionalis” of Linnaeus’ 1751 Dissertation 

Nova plantarum genera; Juel & Harshberger, 1929; Kerkkonen, 1959) and it seems 

very likely that a star-nosed mole Sorex cristatus (currently Condylura cristata) 

from the collections of the KVA, NRM 532024 (Fig. 6), and described by Linnaeus in 

1758, is a specimen brought back to Sweden by Kalm. Linnaeus credited Kalm with 

the locality (Pennsylvania) but not the description of the species. The description is 

detailed, accurate and without reference to previous authors and it is clear that Linnaeus 

had access to a specimen on which he based his own account. There is no other 

record of a specimen of S. cristatus in the mammal collections of the Naturhistoriska 

Riksmuseet in Stockholm. 

Fredrik Hasselquist (1722–1752), a pupil and Apostle of Linnaeus, travelled to 

the Middle East in 1749. He died near Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey) and Linnaeus persuaded 

Queen Lovisa Ulrika to acquire his collections and notes. Hasselquist described a 

specimen of the Egyptian jerboa in 1751, and also figured it in 1752. A detailed account 

appeared in the history of his travels edited and published by Linnaeus in 1757. Linnaeus 

(1758) described and named the species Mus jaculus (currently Jaculus jaculus),

150 


Figure 6. Star-nosed mole, Condylura cristata 

(Linnaeus, 1758), NRM 532024. 

referring to Hasselquist’s publications, and gave a longer description in his 1764 account 

of King Adolf Fredrik’s collection. Specimens NRM 532050 in Stockholm and UUZM 

119 in Uppsala (Fig. 7) are both of this species. The type locality is the Giza pyramid 

from where Hasselquist wrote that he had seen specimens and caught them alive. 

Magnus Lagerström (1691–1759) was one of the directors of the Swedish 

East India Company, founded in 1731 as a trading organisation. He obtained much 

natural history material through his ships’ captains and contacts and made donations to 

the Royal couple, the KVA, Linnaeus and the Uppsala University Museum (Löwegren, 

1952). A specimen in Uppsala, UUZM 96 (Fig. 8), of the red-breasted blackbird of 

Central and northern South America was included in a donation made by Lagerström 

to the University Museum in 1748. The bequest was recorded by Thunberg (1787), 

Lönnberg (1896), Holm (1957) and Wallin (1994). Linnaeus described the specimen in 

1754 in his dissertation Chinensia Lagerstromiana, subsequently republished in 1759 

in the series Amoenitates Academicae. Linnaeus described a further specimen in


Figure 7. Egyptian jerboa, Jaculus 

jaculus (Linnaeus, 1758), 

UUZM 119. 

King Adolf Fredrik’s cabinet (NRM 566026 in Stockholm) in 1754. In the dissertation 

and Museum Adolphi Frederici, Linnaeus used the name “Turdus haematodes”. In 

all subsequent publications he used the specific name militaris, and in 1758 and 1759 

he placed the species in the genus Emberiza Linnaeus, 1758. In his description of 

Emberiza militaris (currently Sturnella militaris) of 1758, Linnaeus referred to his 

two 1754 descriptions so there is no doubt, despite the change of name, that the same 

species was described in all three publications. 

Figure 8. Red-breasted blackbird, Sturnella militaris (Linnaeus, 1758), UUZM 96.

152 



The Symposium “Unlocking the Past. Linnaean collections – past, present and 

future” in June 2007 was an excellent way to celebrate Linnaeus’ tercentenary and I 

thank Professor Roland Moberg and Annika Windahl Pontén in Uppsala for their 

invitation to participate. The staff of the Vertebrate Department, Naturhistorisks 

Riksmuseum, Stockholm, the Evolutionsmuseet, University of Uppsala, and the libraries 

and Mammal Section of the Natural History Museum, London have all been most 

supportive and helpful during my continuing researches. Harry Taylor of the Photography 

Department at the NHM, London, took pictures which surpassed all my expectations 

of the Linnaean mammals and birds in Stockholm and Uppsala (and much else besides), 

and Katarina Heldring-Morris has translated a large amount of Swedish. Three of my 

visits to Stockholm (2002, 2003 and 2006) were supported by grants from the European 

Commission, originally the High Lat scheme and now Synthesys (grant no. SE-TAF 

1173), and I am grateful for this assistance. 

References 

Brown, C., Johnsson, U.G., Nolin, C. & Robach, C. 1997. Drottningholm – the palace, garden 

and park. 48 pp. Drottningholm Palace Administration. 

Hasselquist, F. 1751. Mus aegyptius. Acta Societatis Regiae Scientiarum Upsaliensis, 1751: 

17–20. 

Hasselquist, F. 1752. Egyptiska bårg-råttan. Kongliga Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademiens 

Handlingar, 13: 123–128. 

Hasselquist, F. 1757. Iter palaestinum eller Resa til Heliga Landet … 1749–1752. Salvii, 

Stockholm. 

Holm, A.1957. Specimina Linnaeana. I Uppsala bevarade zoologiska samlingar från Linnés tid. 

Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift, 1957(6): 1–68. 

Juel, H.O. & Harshberger, J.W. 1929. New light on the collection of North American plants made 

by Peter Kalm. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 81: 297– 

303. 

Kerkkonen, M. 1959. Peter Kalm’s North American journey. Its ideological background and 

results. Studia Historica, 1: 1–260. 

Laine, M. 1998. An eighteenth-century Minerva: Lovisa Ulrika and her collections at 

Drottningholm Palace 1744–1777. Eighteenth-Century Studies, 31(4): 493–503. 

Lönnberg, E. 1896. Linnean type-specimens of birds, reptiles, batrachians and fishes in the 

Zoological Museum of the R. University in Upsala. Bihang till Kongliga Svenska 

Vetenskaps-Akademiens Handlingar, 22(4, 1): 1–45. 

Lovén, S. 1887. On the species of Echinoidea described by Linnaeus in his work Museum 

Ludovicae Ulricae. Bihang till Kongliga Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademiens Handlingar, 

13(4, 5): 1–185. 

Löwegren, Y. 1952. Naturaliekabinett i Sverige under 1700-talet ett bidrag till zoologiens historia. 

Lychnos-Bibliotek, 13: 1–407. 

Thunberg, C.P. 1787. Museum Naturalium Academiae Upsaliensis, parts 1 and 2. 32 pp. Uppsala. 

Wallin, L. 1994. Catalogue of type specimens. 4. Linnaean specimens. Uppsala University 

Zoological Museum, Uppsala.


The Linnaeus Link Project 

Carol Gökçe FLS 

Chief Librarian, Department for Communities and Local Government/ 

Department for Transport, 2/H28 Ashdown House, 123, Victoria Street, 

London SW1E 6DE, U.K. 

Carl Linnaeus’ published works and the works of his 331 students continue to 

have great historical significance and key scientific relevance. Known today as an 

important figure both scientifically and culturally, Linnaeus’ work encompassed all plants 

and animals then known to the Western world. Through his publications – in particular, 

Species Plantarum and Systema Naturae – he established the nomenclature we use 

for species today. Many organisations possess collections with works by Linnaeus and 

his students and many of these are important for taxonomic, historical and bibliographical 

research. For example, the Linnean Society of London owns Linnaeus’ personal library 

of books, manuscripts and correspondence. 

The Linnaeus Link Project is an international collaboration between libraries with 

significant holdings of Linnaean material. Its main aim is to produce a comprehensive, 

online union catalogue of Linnaean publications to facilitate research for people 

worldwide enabling them to identify specific copies and locations for his, and his students’, 

works anywhere in the world. Linnaeus Link has grown to include the British Library, 

Danish National Library of Science and Medicine, the Hunt Institute for Botanical 

Documentation, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Linnean Society of 

London, the Natural History Museum, London, Stockholm University Library, Uppsala 

University Library, The Swedish Linnaeus Society, and the Linnaean Correspondence 

Project. 

The Project started in 1996 when I talked to Gina Douglas, Librarian and Archivist 

at the Linnean Society of London, about an idea I had for an online resource for all of 

Linnaeus’ published works which would raise their profile and accessibility. I had become 

aware through my then responsibility for the Linnaean collection in the General Library 

at the Natural History Museum of how difficult people found it to find individual works 

and specific references within them, even with the help of the splendid but rather 

complicated paper-based catalogue written by Basil Soulsby, Catalogue of the works 

of Linnaeus second edition 1933. Gina suggested that I talk to Tomas Anfalt of the 

Linnaean Correspondence Project. On his next visit from Sweden Tomas, Gina and I 

talked through the idea. Tomas was taken with it and our meeting was followed by a 

period of email discussions with a wider group of interested parties in Britain, Europe 

and the US, finally leading to a face to face inaugural meeting in London in April 1999. 

An important task for the project is to identify and characterise significant holdings 

of Linnaean material worldwide. Charlotte Tancin, from the Hunt Institute for Botanical 

Documentation has coordinated the world wide survey of Linnaean collections. We

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now have a much clearer awareness of where Linnaean material can be found. The 

survey results continue to grow and are themselves an aid to research. 

Anne Freeman, the Electronic Services Librarian at the Natural History Museum 

in the early days of the project, helped me to write the first project proposal. It was she 

who came up with the name “Linnaeus Link” which is so appropriate that it is hard to 

think of it by any other name. 

The Project is indebted to the Linnean Society of London for its generous support, 

including funding the salary of a Project Officer, from 2004 to April 2007 to catalogue 

the extensive Linnaean collection at the Natural History Museum, with the Museum 

providing staff support and facilities. Cathy Broad’s transfer from the Linnean Society 

to act as Project Officer was beneficial as Cathy had both cataloguing expertise and a 

knowledge of Linnaeus. From October 2006 to March 2007 Rita Dockery took over 

that role and the resulting high-quality electronic records formed the initial core of the 

Linnaeus Link catalogue, providing a test-bed for technical implementation of the system. 

When I left the Natural History Museum in 2004 Diane Tough took over as 

Linnaeus Link Project Coordinator and with Bernard Scaife, the Digital Library Manager, 

played an important part in the successful completion of the project. 

Linnaean records from The Linnean Society of London, The Natural 

History Museum, the Danish Royal Library comprising the National Library and 

Copenhagen University Library, and Uppsala University Library, have been included 

already and records from the Botanic Garden and Botanic Museum Berlin-Dahlem will 

be coming online soon. Viveca Halldin-Norberg from Uppsala University became a 

project partner in 2005 and was very influencial in getting Swedish organisations enthused 

about the project and in ensuring that Uppsalan records became available on Linnaeus 

Link. The National Herbarium of the Netherlands, Leiden University Branch, the Royal 

Botanic Garden Madrid and the Conservatoire et Jardins Botaniques de Genève are 

preparing to contribute their records. It is hoped that their records will be online in 

2008. The British Library was a helpful early partner, first represented by Graham 

Jefcoate and Barbara Hawes, with Christian Jensen taking over from Graham in more 

recent years. The BL is working on making their records compatible with the catalogue. 

The Linnaeus Link catalogue has now been transferred from the Natural History 

Museum and is being managed by the Linnean Society. The system is being migrated 

to the University of London Computer Centre which is hosting it on behalf of the 

Linnean Society. The Linnaeus Link Project Coordinator role has now passed to Lynda 

Brooks at the Linnean Society with Ben Sherwood providing expert technical support. 

The Linnaeus Link Union Catalogue is now available online on the Linnean Society 

of London website http://www.linnean.org/index.php?id=323. There are currently 

over 1,500 separate bibliographic records on the system. The Project logo is designed 

to show Linnaeus’ importance in all domains of the natural world. 

The 12th Linnaeus Link Project annual partners meeting took place in Uppsala in 

September 2007. At the meeting there was a formal launch of the Linnaeus Link 

Catalogue, and the delegates were delighted to see the tangible results. They 

congratulated the teams at the Natural History Museum and the Linnean Society of 

London for bringing the project to fruition.


Linnaean Landscapes - Transforming Linnaeus’ 

Cultural Context into a Cultural Heritage 

Mariette Manktelow FLS 

Dept of Systematic Biology, Uppsala University, 

Norbyv. 18D, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden 

Introduction 

Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) worked and lived during the main part of his life in 

Uppsala, Sweden, and many traces of his life are still present in and around this town. 

He filled the Hortus Upsaliensis with plants from all over the world. He took his 

students on botanical excursions around the town along eight trails that he named 

Herbationes Upsalienses. He bought the country estate called Hammarby, including 

Sävja. There he built houses, planted gardens and farmed the land. For more than half 

of his life he lived in Uppsala with family and friends, colleagues and students, neighbours 

and labourers, leaving an impact on Uppsala and its environs. 

The most important Linnaean landmarks in Uppsala became protected in the 

19th and 20th centuries. The buildings and garden in Hammarby were bought by the 

Swedish state in 1879. The Swedish Linnaean Society, established in 1917, reconstructed 

the abandoned Hortus Upsaliensis and the adjacent old professor’s home in the early 

20th century. The Uppsala municipality bought Sävja in 1974 and reconstructed three 

Linnaean excursion trails of Herbationes Upsalienses in 1978. 

However, by the beginning of the 21st century many areas around Uppsala with 

traces from Linnaeus’ life and work were still unprotected. Earlier generations of 

scientists had good knowledge about these areas, but their knowledge, as well as the 

oral tradition in the countryside, had now sunk into oblivion and were not available to 

the urban planners. The city was expanding rapidly and a new city development plan 

was being established. The Linnaean traces were threatened. 

Linnaean Landscapes 

To face this threatening situation, a new project started in spring 2002, Linnaean 

Landscapes. The aim was to produce knowledge about sites connected to Linnaeus in 

the Uppsala countryside and present it to the responsible bodies so that these traces 

could become part of the city development. The project research was cross disciplinary, 

with the original project board consisting of Dr Mariette Manktelow, a systematic 

botanist based at Uppsala University, Mr Jan Helmer Gustafsson, an archaeologist and 

County Council Antiquarian and Mr Rolf Jacobson, biologist and civil servant in nature 

and park development at the Uppsala Municipality. In 2003 the board was expanded to 

include Dr Urban Emanuelsson, a landscape ecologist and Director of the Centre of 

Biodiversity, Dr Ing-Marie Munktell, historian and Director of the Museum Gustavianum 

at Uppsala University and Dr Mats Wilhelm Pettersson, ecologist and landscape 

photographer. 

Efforts were made to communicate the knowledge both to locally involved parish 

associations and to civil servants at the municipal, county and national levels. A web

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site www.linnaeanlandscapes.org was set up to publish new facts. Linnaean 

Landscapes had to be launched as an independent project since it was too broad to be 

placed under any one organisation or university. The broad character of the project 

was a problem when applying for financial support. The very first funding came from 

the Linnean Society of London, which was a breakthrough for the project and showed 

the international values of the landscapes. 

Linnaean Landscapes was planned to last from 2002–2012, with a half time point 

in 2007. The first six years were the most intense, using the energy of the Tercentenary 

preparations to achieve the main goal: to convince responsible landowners and managers 

to include conservation in their management plans. The different projects are listed 

below. 

Hammarby Landscape, 2002–2012 

Linnaeus was the greatest landowner in the parish of Danmark. The farmland 

surrounding Hammarby was never included in the museum estate in 1879, but was 

commercially farmed. There were still many 18th century traces left in the agricultural 

land, but some had been destroyed due to lack of knowledge. The farm buildings were 

pulled down in the 19th century to decrease the risk of fire, and this had, with time, 

given visitors the wrong impression of Hammarby as a summerhouse rather than a 

farmstead. In 2002 it was difficult to make owners and managers interested in the 

historical value of the surroundings of Hammarby. 

In 2005 Linnaean Landscapes published a development plan for Hammarby and 

its surroundings on its web site (Gustafsson et al. 2005) and, by 2007, most suggestions 

from this development plan had been realized. Uppsala Municipality and the Uppsala 

Figure 1. It was important to make people understand that Hammarby was a farmstead and 

not merely a summerhouse. Photograph by Mats Wilhelm (www.matswilhelm.com).


County Administrative Board erected 18th century style wooden fences in the fields 

surrounding Hammarby, recreating the borders on a map from 1763. The Swedish 

Minister of Environment was invited by Linnaean Landscapes to replant two of Linnaeus’ 

entrance ash trees, cut down in the 1980s because of old age. Uppsala University took 

on the task of recreating Hammarby’s stable as a service building, a project sponsored 

by a local building company, Sh Bygg. A great moment was the 13 May 2007 when the 

Uppsala County Governor, Anders Björck inaugurated a Cultural Reserve around 

Hammarby, with the aim of reviving the agriculture of Linnaeus’ time. 

From 2008 to 2012 Linnaean Landscapes will continue to work on the knowledge 

of Hammarby and the possibilities of preserving the view from Hammarby itself. 

Linnaean Plants, 2003–2006 

Several plant species have spread around Uppsala from Linnaeus’ cultivations, 

but in 2002 only one major botanical inventory was published (Manktelow 2001), in 

which more than 40 species in Hammarby were identified as probable remnants from 

Hortus Upsaliensis. 

The Linnaean Plants Project was originally aimed at confirming the genetic identity 

of Linnaean plants by means of DNA fingerprinting. However, two research funding 

applications were turned down at the Swedish Research Council Formas. The project 

was ranked very high, but did not fit into the scope of Formas or any other funders in 

Sweden. The scope then changed towards extending the botanical inventories around 

the farms and manors where Linnaeus had friends and colleagues, and Linnaean species 

were found in several of these. Linnaean Landscapes worked with the botanical 

association Botaniska Sektionen in Uppsala to make inventories on the Herbationes 

Upsalienses trails to find extant plant populations from Linnaeus’ time. Other projects 

sparked off by our activities were an inventory of Linnaean plants in Sävja undertaken 

by Uppsala Municipality in Sävja and by Kronoberg County Administrative Board in 

Råshult (Manktelow 2005). Our knowledge inspired landscape architect Ulf Nordfjell 

in his contribution to the Chelsea Flower Show in 2007 ordered by the Swedish National 

Linnaeus Commission. His Linnaeus Garden was partly inspired by Linnaean species 

in Hammarby and won a gold medal. 

Sävja, 2003–2007 

The parish association of Danmark has taken good care of Sävja through voluntary 

efforts, but they struggled with getting a full response from the landowner, Uppsala 

Municipality. Although easily reached by local communication, Sävja was not open to 

the public. A suburban villa area surrounded the museum, and the city development 

plan suggested new housing quite close to the museum area, something that would 

destroy traces of the 18th century Sävja farmland. No recent botanical or historical 

inventories had been made. 

Linnaean Landscapes started an active communication with Uppsala Municipality 

to change the city development plan, and the surrounding landscape remained 

unexploited. We decided to support and encourage the active parish association in their 

communication with Uppsala Municipality. Our research focused on the reconstruction 

of the excursion trail Herbatio Danensis, which would give much focus on Sävja 

since it passed through the estate.

158 


Figure 2. To emphasise the international value of Herbationes Upsalienses the trails were 

marked with the Linnaeus medallion in cooperation with the Linnean Society of London. 

Photograph by Mats Wilhelm (www.matswilhelm.com). 

The response from Uppsala Municipality was very good, and by 2007 houses 

were renovated, new fences put up around the farm, a botanical inventory made on the 

estate (Roger Englund, unpublished data), and the parish association had got financial 

support to keep Sävja open to the public daily. 

Herbationes Upsalienses, 2002–2008 

By 2002 the three reconstructed excursion trails of Herbationes Upsalienses 

were in great need of renovation. They were partly not historically correct, and there 

was no recent information available about the total excursion system. The protocols 

from Linnaeus’ excursions were mainly unpublished and the knowledge of Herbationes 

Upsalienses was restricted to the botanical and zoological communities. Linnaean 

Landscapes suggested a development plan in four steps: 1. research, 2. reconstruction, 

3. availability and, 4. conservation. Cross disciplinary research in botany and landscape 

history was carried out in order to reconstruct the original trails, using field work studies 

as well as interpreted excursion protocols. The data obtained was offered to the Uppsala 

Municipality in their efforts to renovate the three existing excursion trails. The 

municipality accepted the idea of also restoring Herbatio Danensis, and incorporated 

it into the Tercentenary preparations. 

Inspired by the suggestions from Linnaean Landscapes, the Uppsala Municipality 

increased the availability of Herbationes Upsalienses with signs along the trails carrying 

information in Swedish and English and special texts for Swedish school children, 

brochures with Swedish and English texts, a website www.linnestigarna.se, excursion


guides trained in Linnaean teaching techniques, and pieces of art installed along the 

trails to spark off the curiosity of the ramblers. 

A decision to reconstruct all eight trails in Herbationes Upsalienses was made 

in 2006 by all political parties in the County Council. Conservation of the trails, including 

lookouts and viewpoints, is now the focus of Linnaean Landscapes for 2008 together 

with monitoring of remnant plant and animal populations studied by Linnaeus and his 

students. 

Sara Christina Linnaea and Gränby, 2002-2006 

An almost unknown place in Uppsala was the homestead of Linnaeus’ daughter 

Sara Christina Linnaea, in Gränby, east of Uppsala. She lived there during 1798–1835, 

the last 14 years as a widow. Her house burnt down in 1972, but remnants of the 

garden and farmland were still visible in the grazed area. Gränby was an exploitation 

area in the city development plan. Linnaean Landscapes saw a potential in Gränby as 

a place in which to focus on the Tercentenary gender perspective, since Sara Christina’s 

sister, Elisabeth Christina Linnaea, had knowledge of botany. 

Important historical facts were obtained through interviews with an elderly lady 

born in Gränby, Mrs Anna Söderberg. This made it possible for Linnaean Landscapes 

to officially inaugurate Gränby as a Linnaea memorial homestead in 2003, a ceremony 

carried out by the County Council politician Britt Löfgren. Unfortunately Mrs Söderberg 

passed away a month before the inauguration. 

Biological values in the area also altered the building plans in favour of the Linnaean 

area in Gränby. The landowner Uppsala Municipality renovated the site and in 2007 

erected an art monument by Anette Wixner and Bodil Gellermark to symbolise the 

Figure 3. The artist Anette Wixner by the monument symbolising Sara Christina 

Linnaea’s house. Photograph by Björn Tingström.

160 


house of Sara Christina Linnaea. The municipality also created a path for children 

through the agricultural landscape. Gränby has inspired artists and scientists to interpret 

and study women in botany. 

Pehr Kalm and Funbo Lövsta, 2004–2007 

Another place not previously well known in Uppsala was Funbo Lövsta, once 

owned by Linnaeus’ friend Baron Sten Carl Bielke. Linnaeus’ famous student Pehr 

Kalm lived there from 1741–1747 before he travelled to America. Several traces were 

present in buildings and in the surrounding farmland, among them a number of plant 

species originating from the agricultural experimental plantations made by Bielke. Funbo 

Lövsta was of great interest abroad, but the landowner, Swedish Agricultural University, 

was not fully aware of its historical values. In the city development plan, Funbo Lövsta 

was a site suggested for Uppsala’s first wind power station and an extra sewage plant 

for the city. 

A dialogue with the Uppsala Municipality about the historical values of Funbo 

Lövsta changed the city development plan. The next goal was to make the Swedish 

Agricultural University aware of the historical values. Linnaean Landscapes supported 

Malin Eriksson, a landscape architect student at the university, in her exam works on 

Funbo Lövsta (Eriksson 2005, 2006). It came to our knowledge that Herbert R. Rambo 

in Philadelphia, USA, with Swedish ancestry, wanted to reintroduce the apple variety 

Rambo into Sweden. Linnaean Landscapes suggested Funbo Lövsta as a site for this 

and the Swedish Agricultural University to host the apple reintroduction. In 2007 the 

American Ambassador Michael M. Wood planted the Rambo apple in a ceremony 

which attracted attention to Funbo Lövsta as a historical site. Malin Eriksson was 

employed to create the information for visitors. 

Art & Linnaean Landscapes, 2002–2007 

The connection between art and science is very important in the project. Art 

helps us to perceive the facts of science, a knowledge that Carl Linnaeus also practised 

in his writing and speaking. A group of artists was tied to the project, all with different 

means of expression: Anette Wixner (oil on canvas), Bodil Gellermark (ceramics), 

Mats Wilhelm (landscape photography), Hans Hedlund (copperplates, sculpture), Marie 

Öhrn (theatre) and Margaretha Bååth (water colour), all participated with different art 

projects during 2002–2007. They finally united in a Tercentenary exhibition in the 

Museum Gustavianum. Although the art project was formally finished in 2007, many 

small independent projects were sparked off and continue. 

Conservation strategy, 2002–2012 

The Linnaean Landscapes elements include lookouts and landscape views. In 

Sweden there is no legal framework for conservation of vast landscape areas. The 

issue of getting a legal framework for vast landscapes has been an issue to Linnaean 

Landscapes throughout the project. The views of the landscape are an essential part 

of a historical site, and an example is Hammarby, where the view belongs to two 

different municipalities.


Figure 4. Vice-chancellor of the Swedish Agricultural University Lisa Sennerby Forsse 

holding the Rambo apple tree in Funbo Lövsta. She is flanked by Herbert R. Rambo from 

Philadelphia and the American Ambassador in Sweden Michael M. Wood. 

Photograph by Björn Tingström 

Conclusions 

We conclude that we have reached our goals from 2002 to 2007. There was little 

knowledge available and no official discussion about Linnaean traces in the Uppsala 

countryside. There was little interest among landowners and managers to extend their 

responsibilities beyond limits present at that time. After an initial period characterised 

by insecurity on how to approach an independent project belonging to nobody and 

everybody, we see today that the ideas of Linnaean Landscapes are widely accepted 

and to a large extent taken over by responsible owners and managers. Linnaean 

Landscapes (“Linnés Historiska Landskap”) has become a concept in the city 

development plan of Uppsala Municipality and is top priority in the Uppsala cultural 

political program. 

The success of this project is due to the joint effort of a large number of people 

who have sympathised with its aims and interacted in the work. For their support and 

cooperation the board of the Linnaean Landscapes is immensely grateful. The resulting 

integration of historical values into a developing society is a gift to future generations 

inheriting the Linnaean Landscapes in Uppsala. 


Linnaean Landscapes wish to thank the Linnean Society of London, 

Sparbanksstiftelsen i Uppland and the Uppsala Municipality for financial and moral 

support. An extended gratitude is expressed to all collaborators during 2002–2007.

162 


References 

Eriksson, M. 2005. Sten Carl Bielkes och Pehr Kalms försöksodlingar vid Funbo Lövsta. Exam 

work in Agricultural History at Swedish Agricultural University 2005. Published on 

www.linnaeanlandscapes.org. 

Eriksson, M. 2006. Landscape Character Assessment experience values at Lövstaslätten and 

Funbo Lövsta. Exam work in Landscape Architecture at Swedish Agricultural University 

2006. Published on www.linnaeanlandscapes.org. 

Gustafsson, J. H., Manktelow, M., Jacobson, R., Emanuelsson, U. & Munktell, I.-M. 2005. En 

utvecklingsplan för det historiska landskapet kring Linnés Hammarby. Linnés Historiska 

Landskap 2. Published on www.linnaeanlandscapes.org. 

Manktelow, M. 2001. Hammarby – ett blommande kulturarv. Svensk Botanisk Tidsskrift 95(5):251- 

313. 

Manktelow, M. 2005. Råshult Södregårds trädgård och Adonis Stenbrohultensis – vad finns 

kvar? En inventering av kulturväxter i Råshult. Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift 99(1): 31-59.


A Tribute to Linnaeus 

at the Chelsea Flower Show 2007 

Ulf Nordfjell 

Sickla kanalgata 25, SE-120 67 Stockholm, Sweden 

2007 was the tercentenary of the Swedish botanist, scientist and explorer, Carl 

Linnaeus. His life and work was celebrated through numerous activities and exhibitions, 

especially in his native Sweden, but his passion for the natural world was celebrated at 

the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2007, in London, with a garden commissioned by the 

Swedish Government and coordinated by the The National Tercentenary Committee 

in Sweden, in cooperation with the Swedish Embassy in London and the Swedish 

Institute in Stockholm and was the ‘Tribute to Linnaeus’ show garden that I was 

commissioned to design. 

The show garden was a contemporary design. Its composition, the materials 

chosen and plant selections all paid tribute to particular aspects of Linnaeus and his 

native landscape. Many of the themes explored in the garden design are deeply rooted 

in the cultural heritage and identity of Sweden. The garden design celebrated both a 

modern interpretation and traditional values and also techniques including architecture 

and design. 

Today we associate the Swedish 

style from the 18th century, which 

Linnaeus was part of, with the 

Gustavian style, influenced by the rich 

royal court of France, but considerably 

simplified due to the poorer conditions 

in Sweden at the time. Today this 

modest, simple and yet exquisite style 

is much admired and is also a source 

of inspiration for more modern designs, 

such as in this garden, where simplicity 

and strictness of the lines and 

decorations are manifest. 

The “Tribute to Linnaeus” garden at the 

Chelsea Flower Show in London, 2007.

164 


‘Tribute to Linnaeus’ is a contemporary, stylised interpretation of Swedish nature. 

It aims to communicate a feeling for Swedish nature – thus it is not an attempt to 

create an imitation of nature. Simplicity is a key word: simple plants in simple 

arrangements presenting a spring garden with a snowy or icy expression. Common 

garden plants, some of which grow wild in Sweden, were in shades of white with icy 

yellow and icy blue, in contrast to purple and green. The feeling of snow in April was 

my aim. 

Hedges of Picea, a traditional hedging plant, gave basic structure and enclosure 

to the garden. The primary tree species used were Pine and Birch, both iconic to the 

Swedish landscape. Malus, cultivated by Linnaeus in his botanic gardens, was used 

with flat cut crowns to compliment the character of the Pine and Birch. 

Other plants used in the garden were a mix of those grown or cultivated by 

Linnaeus, together with species which grow wild in Sweden. Those plants used in the 

garden which were originally planted by Linnaeus in his own gardens at Hammarby 

outside Uppsala and are still growing there today include; Lilium martagon ‘Album’, 

Asarum eruopaeum and Jovibarba globifera (Semperivium soboliferum).


Several other plants chosen for the garden 

are known for being cultivated by Linnaeus at 

his botanical garden in Uppsala, these include; 

Lingustrum vulgaris, Viburnum opulus 

‘Roseum’, Malus, Fritilaria melagris. 

Astrantia major, Digitalis purpurea, Iris 

sibirica, Osmunda regalis and of course the 

trademark Linnaea borealis. The wild species 

used can be traced back to Linnaeus’ days 

included; Vaccinium vitis-idaea, Deschampsia 

cespitosa and Fragaria vesca. Linnaeus 

organised the botany and I wanted to do the 

same with the design. So I used the plants which 

we do connect with nature more strictly, as in 

grids, and the garden plants in the way of nature. 

The garden was partially divided diagonally 

by perforated timber walls, partly a pergola. The 

openings within the walls framed more precise 

and specific views within the garden. Encouraging different ways of looking into the 

garden reflects the enduring curiosity of Linnaeus and his scientific approach to nature. 

The subdivisions made by the timber walls also defined different plant micro-climates 

for shady, sunny, drought or moisture loving plant species. The walls combined historical 

and modern construction 

techniques. They were painted 

in colours similar to those used 

on barns and houses in the 

Swedish countryside, including 

red (made from red oxide) and 

silver grey, the colour most 

associated with the Gustavian 

style. 

Water was used in the 

garden to represent its 

fundamental importance to the 

Swedish woodland landscape. 

The water within the garden 

did not mimic nature but 

referred to its many different 

characteristics: The source of 

water from a spring, the 

collection of water in a dark 

woodland tarn, the violent flow 

of water as it rushes over 

native cobbles.

166 


To create a feeling of deep forest and a more severe climate, clear water trickled 

from a spring, framed in a circle of golden maidenhair. Linnaeus has documented his 

special love for maidenhair, having used it as a mattress as well as a cover when he 

spent the night in the wood during his journeys through Sweden. The water was calm 

and still in a dark tarn and, on the other side of a narrow pathway of granite, rushed 

over a cobblestone area. Just as in gardens of history, whether they might be Moorish 

or Italian renaissance, the water in this contemporary garden was inspired by Swedish 

nature and created the centre, symbolising the source of life. 

Granite is the native stone of Sweden. It is one of the natural resources which 

has played an important part in the development of the Swedish economy. Its location 

and use was explored in research work by Linnaeus and it continues to be used in all 

aspects of construction. The primary, hard landscape material in the garden was granite 

from the Swedish West coast. 

The bedroom walls of Linnaeus’ Summer house at Hammarby were decorated 

with illustrations from Plantae Selectae by Georg Dionysius Ehret. These images 

have been transformed into digital art on large vertical laser cut sheets of steel by the 

Norwegian artist Anne-Karin Furunes and were incorporated into the garden design. 

The garden has been moved to the Botanical Garden in Göteborg, where it was 

reopened one month after Chelsea. The garden is placed in a totally new main entrance 

area that I have designed (see below). 

Exhibitor and sponsor was The National Tercentenary Committee in Sweden, in 

cooperation with the Swedish Embassy and the Swedish Institute in Stockholm. 

Designer: Ulf Nordfjell, Landscape architect, Stockholm 

Coordinator: Julie Toll, London, Tobias Nordlund Sweden 

Contractor: Ricky Baxter, Brambles London.


Naming Nature: 

The Future of the Linnaean System 

Sandra Knapp FLS 

Department of Botany, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, 

London SW7 5BD, U.K. 

Botanical Secretary of the Linnean Society 

In celebrating the Tercentenary of Carl Linnaeus, we have rightly concentrated 

on his great contribution to the biology and society of his times, and to a certain extent 

have been looking behind us to the past. But Linnaeus himself was a forward-looking 

man, and he would have been disappointed if we did not use the Tercentenary to 

assess the prospects of the science he so loved. Bremer (2008) has shown how 

Linnaeus’ sexual system, introduced in the first edition of Systema Naturae (Linnaeus, 

1735), has been superseded by more analytical, more character-rich and more repeatable 

systems of classification. The knowledge that all of life shares a genealogy and that 

diversity is generated by evolution by natural selection has meant a step-change in our 

ability to discern patterns and work out processes for the generation of the diversity 

that Linnaeus concentrated on documenting. I like to think he would have been pleased 

with this knowledge – after all, it was he who quite firmly strove to unite all of life 

(humans included) in the various editions of his Systema Naturae. 

It is, however, Linnaeus’ naming system that has endured into the 21st century 

virtually unchanged. The two-word names we use today for species were conceived 

by Linnaeus (1753) as an efficient method for remembering and communicating about 

organisms (Stevens, 2002). Others had used two-word names for species before 

Linnaeus, but these were mixed in with one-word names, three-word names and 

polynomials – there was no consistency. Carl Linnaeus was an eminently practical 

botanist. He recognised the drawbacks of such long and unwieldy names and “invented” 

this simplified, two-word naming system in Species Plantarum (1753). He gave each 

species a genus name and what he called the “trivial name” – the second word hanging 

in the margin that simplified everything. For the first time, scientists could apply a 

consistent and uniform system to ALL plants (and after 1758 to animals too). The 

simplicity of the system delighted many scientists, and it soon caught on. This same 

system is still used today to name new species of plants and animals, and to communicate 

about them scientifically. In extending his binomial (or binominal) system to all of life in 

the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (Linnaeus, 1758), Linnaeus created the efficient 

cataloguing tool for life on Earth that we still use today. A name is merely a tool for the 

efficient retrieval of information and thus consistency in naming (always spelled the 

same, the same wherever the species occurs) is critically important to getting science 

done. This was true in Linnaeus’ day, but it is even more relevant today. Today we 

know more about life on Earth – 1.8 million described species, and information about 

these many organisms is scattered throughout the scientific and popular literature. 

A scientific name using the Linnaean conventions provides an efficient information 

retrieval system, especially if one adds on the power and complexity of the Internet.

168 


Figure 1. The title page of Linnaeus’ Species Plantarum (1753).


Figure 2. The title page of Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae, 10th Edition (1758).

170 


Godfray (2002) has argued that the science of taxonomy is made for the Internet – 

information and image rich, complex and multi-layered. The power of the world-wide 

web and the search engines that access it means that information that previously might 

have taken weeks or years to compile can be accessed in one query – if the information 

is online. This is where species names come into their own as an index to taxonomic 

information. A name opens a whole new world. The use of scientific names to index 

life on Earth was taken to a new level earlier this year when the Encyclopedia of Life 

was launched (http://www.eol.org). This ambitious project, kick-started by E.O. Wilson 

(who spoke about it at the Society in late 2007) and made available in its “alpha” form 

in February 2008 with 30,000 entries, will have a “page” for each of the 1.8 million 

species we know today, ultimately with the associated literature about that species 

digitised and openly available (through the Biodiversity Heritage Library, see http:// 

www.biodiversitylibrary.org/). Harnessing the power of the Internet, EOL will be 

able to bring huge amounts of information together in one place in a one-stop-shop for 

knowledge about the other organisms with which we share the planet. If it works. It is 

up to everyone interested in natural history to make it work, contributions are sought 

from everyone with an interest through a Wikipedia-type interface. The use of scientific 

names as the index for EOL shows how useful they are, and how useful they will 

continue to be far into the future. 

We need to name species and other taxonomic categories in order to communicate 

about them, both amongst scientists and with the public at large. The species category 

has long been imbued with an almost mystical status, stemming in part from the arguments 

that species were more “real” than other taxonomic categories (e.g., Mayr, 1942), and 

latterly in part due to the use of species names in conservation legislation (Mace, 2004; 

Isaac et al., 2004). Part of the appeal of species as units, in my opinion, has to do with 

the noun-adjective structure of species names; species names feel like regular speech, 

they feel natural. The great utility of scientific names has not to do with the transferability 

of rank across taxonomic groups, but instead to their international acceptance, within 

each taxonomic group, to circumscribe more or less the same group of organisms. This 

difference is key to how we communicate about species – for practical use it is important 

that Primula vulgaris or Solanum lycopersicum refers to the same sorts of individuals 

wherever they occur, it is not so important for communication that Solanum 

lycopersicum means the same thing as Balaenoptera musculus. The units we talk 

about need not necessarily be the same as the units for conservation (see Isaac et al., 

2005) or the units of evolution (see Raven, 1976); it might be convenient to have a 

multi-purpose unit, but in fact, it may lead to false assumptions and inferences about 

not only pattern of characters, but also process of diversification (Raven, 1977). 

But will we be able to give binomial Latin names like those Linnaeus used to all 

organisms, from whales to microbes? Probably not. If we have only to date described 

about 10% of the diversity of life on Earth using traditional methods, we will never get 

as much information as we think we need for other purposes if we do not think laterally, 

just as Linnaeus did. It may be that we only need give formal “Linnaean” names to 

taxa where the name will have a particular use, say an endangered species or an 

essential crop plant. Some taxa may be too numerous for us to give them all formal 

names; the emerging science of biodiversity informatics may develop techniques that


Figure 3. The bee orchid Ophrys apifera painted by G. Watkin. 

can establish a new indexing system for these kinds of organisms. A species name 

does not mean that those taxa are equivalent, as I argue here. 

Attempting to come up with a universal species definition that will ensure that a 

species of butterfly is exactly equivalent to a species of rose is to a certain extent like 

trying to count the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin – intrinsically 

and intellectually fascinating, but ultimately not particularly practical in the short or 

even useful in the long term. Unless we just get on with the job and use species as 

hypotheses, as units of classification (e.g., Liden & Oxelman, 1989; Dupré, 2001) that 

are subject to test and reformulation on the acquisition of new evidence, we cannot 

begin to investigate process or pattern in nature. Species need not be special, but

172 


rather should be seen as an incredibly useful starting point for the investigation of 

where diversity is and how it is generated. We should not get hung up on whether the 

names are all equivalent or upset when they change, or cross when people disagree. 

Without a baseline, whether of names or of other identifiers, I fear that practical 

challenges facing natural history today, such as inventory, monitoring and conservation, 

run the risk of being put off into the future, when it might just be too late for us to meet 

them. 

Conservation can be completely independent of taxonomic status; it should not 

matter if, for example, the bonobo or the killer whale or the bee orchid is classified as 

a species, subspecies or local population (Isaac et al., 2004). If species lists are to be 

used in conservation planning, it is important that those using them realise the limitations 

and hypothetical nature of such lists – species lists are really only a baseline prepared 

for a particular use. Lists prepared for one purpose, if used uncritically for another, can 

cause problems (Royal Society, 2003). The expectation that mere lists of species will 

be usable for everything we might now need or could possibly need in the future is 

hopelessly naïve. 

Figure 4. Killer whale (Orcinus orca) and Bonobo (Pan paniscus). (Photos. P. Morris) 

The preparation of a global list of all known plant species was a dream of Charles 

Darwin (Nic Lughadha, 2004), and in his will he left funds to begin the task as Index 

Kewensis, now much improved and expanded as the International Plant Names Index 

(IPNI, http://www.ipni.org). He was not at all concerned that the exact definition of a 

species was difficult to pin down (since evolution ensured this was impossible, see 

Mallet, 2008), but rather wanted this list for practical reasons. The botanical community 

today has great impetus to actually realise Darwin’s dream, using Linnaeus’ system. 

At the sixth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in The 

Hague in 2002, the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC, Secretariat of 

the CBD, 2002) was adopted. The GSPC has 16 targets, the first and most fundamental 

of which is the preparation of a “working list of all known plant species, as a first step 

towards a world flora”. Impediments to achieving this goal are many (Crane, 2004; 

Nic Lughadha, 2004), but the recognition that such lists of species names are not static,


but subject to continual updating and improvement is critical. The names in the global 

list may be units of a variety of types, but most importantly they are units of 

communication that will allow us to approach conservation action in a concerted way. 

The species, called by its Linnaean two-word name, is a practical category for 

entities we wish to talk about and ultimately identify and conserve. Its name allows us 

to retrieve efficiently all known information about it from wherever it might be. In 

remembering Linnaeus at the close of his Tercentenary, let us remember not only his 

relevance to the science of his day, but the relevance of his tools to the science of 

tomorrow. Let us also remember that Linnaeus was a great innovator, but that not all 

his ideas worked or have been carried forward to today. In our attempts to come to 

grips with the challenges facing us and the other species with which we share the 

planet, it is worth reflecting on the importance of such innovation and on the necessity 

of looking forward and adapting our outlook as new challenges arise. 

References 

Bremer, B. 2008. The phylogeny of the flowering plants compared to the Linnean sexual system. 

The Linnean Special Issue 8, this issue. 

Crane, P. 2004. Documenting plant diversity: unfinished business. Philosophical Transactions 

of the Royal Society, series B, 359: 735–738. 

Dupré, J. 2001. In defence of classification. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biology and 

Biomedical Sciences 32: 203–219. 

Godfray, H.C.J. 2002. Challenges for taxonomy. Nature 417: 17–19. 

Isaac, N.J.B., J. Mallet & G. Mace. 2004. Taxonomic inflation: its influence on macroecology and 

conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19: 464–469. 

Liden, M. & B. Oxelman. 1989. Species. Pattern or process? Taxon 38: 228–232. 

Linnaeus, C. 1735. Systema Naturae, ed. 1. Amsterdam. 


Linnaeus, C. 1758. Systema Naturae, ed. 10. Stockholm. 

Mace, G. 2004. The role of taxonomy in species conservation. Philosophical Transactions of 

the Royal Society, series B, 359: 711–720. 

Mayr, E. 1942. Systematics and the origin of species. Columbia University Press, New York. 

Nic Lughadha, E. 2004. Towards a working list of all known plant species. Philosophical 

Transactions of the Royal Society, series B, 359: 681–688. 

Raven, P.H. 1976. Systematics and plant population biology. Systematic Botany 1: 284–316. 

Raven, P.H. 1977. The systematics and evolution of higher plants; the changing scene in the 

natural sciences 1776-1976. Academy of Natural Sciences, Special Publication 12: 59–83. 

Royal Society, 2003. Measuring biodiversity for conservation. The Royal Society, London. 

Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2002. Global Strategy for Plant 

Conservation. Quebec and London: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 

and Botanic Gardens Conservation International. 

Stevens, P.F. 2002. Why do we name organisms? Some reminders from the past. Taxon 51: 11– 

26.

174 


Authors’ e-mail contacts 

Prof. Carl-Olof Jacobson FLS 

Karin Berglund 

Prof. Marie-Christine Skuncke 

Dr Margareta Nisser-Dalman 

Dr Hanna Östholm 

Prof. Nils Uddenberg 

Prof. Birgitta Bremer FLS 

Dr Jenny Beckman 

Dr Pieter Baas FLS 

Dr Charlie Jarvis HonFLS 

Annika Erikson Browne FLS 

Dr John Edmondson FLS 

Dr Brent Elliott FLS 

Prof. Bengt Jonsell FMLS 

Per Cullhed 

Dr Roland Moberg FLS 

Anthea Gentry FLS 

Prof. Birgitta Bremer FLS 

Carol Gökçe FLS 

Dr Mariette Manktelow FLS 

Ulf Nordfjell 

Dr Sandra Knapp FLS 

carl-olof.jacobson@ebc.uu.se 

ka.berglund@telia.com 

marie-christine.skuncke@SCASSS.uu.se 

Margareta.Nisser@gustavianum.uu.se 

Hanna.Ostholm@idehist.uu.se 

nils.uddenberg@telia.com 

birgitta.bremer@bergianska.se 

Jenny.Beckman@idehist.uu.se 

Baas@nhn.leidenuniv.nl 

c.jarvis@nhm.ac.uk 

annikabrowne@rhs.org.uk 

John.Edmondson@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk 

brente@rhs.org.uk 

bengt.jonsell@tele2.se 

Per.Cullhed@ub.uu.se 

Roland.Moberg@evolmuseum.uu.se 

alantgentry@aol.com 

birgitta.bremer@bergianska.se 

Carol.Gokce@communities.gsi.gov.uk 

mariette.manktelow@ebc.uu.se 

ulf.nordfjell@ramboll.se 

s.knapp@nhm.ac.uk


THE HISTORY of 

NATURAL HISTORY 

Second Edition 

GAVIN BRIDSON 

October 2008 

THE HISTORY OF NATURAL HISTORY (Second Edition) by Gavin 

Bridson, is an essential source of information for scientists, researchers 

and enthusiastic amateurs. This annotated bibliography, the only one to 

encompass the entire subject area, provides a unique key to information 

sources for this wide-ranging subject. This revised and greatly updated 

edition is being published by The Linnean Society of London in October 

2008, priced £65 (+ p&p), with a 

pre-publication price of £45 (+ p&p). 

To reserve your copy 

email: Victoria@linnean.org 

Tel: +44 (0)20 7434 4479 

or visit www.linnean.org for details.

Winner of the IAPT Stafleu Medal 

and the CBHL Botanical Literature Award 2008. 

Priced at only £80.00 + postage and packing. 

The order form can be downloaded at www.linnean.org 

or contact the office – details inside the front cover.

CONTENTS 

Foreword: David Cutler, President of The Linnean Society of London............. 5 

Part 1: Unlocking the Past 

Commemoration Speech Carl-Olof Jacobson ........................................................ 9 

The Keen Eye: Linnaeus – The Man Who Saw Everything Karin Berglund ....... 13 

Linnaeus: An 18th Century Background Marie-Christine Skuncke ...................... 19 

What’s more important, a good story or a true story? Margareta Nisser-Dalman 27 

Making Memorials: Early Celebrations of Linnaeus Hanna Östholm .................... 35 

Linnaeus’ Sexual System Nils Uddenberg .............................................................. 45 

Linnaeus’ sexual system and flowering plant phylogeny Birgitta Bremer .............. 51 

Vernacular plant names and binary nomenclature Jenny Beckman ....................... 55 

Apollos of Systematic Botany Pieter Baas ........................................................... 63 

Part 2: Botanical Art in the Age of Linnaeus 

Linnaeus’ use of illustrations Charlie Jarvis ........................................................... 75 

Georg Dionysius Ehret Annika Erikson Browne .................................................... 85 

Botanical Art in the Age of Linnaeus Brent Elliott ............................................... 97 

Botanical Art from the Age of Transoceanic Discovery John Edmondson......... 105 


Linné and Taxonomy in Japan His Majesty The Emperor of Japan.................. 115 

England’s Linnaeus Brent Elliott ............................................................................ 121 

Linnaeus’ Lapland Herbarium in Paris Bengt Jonsell ........................................ 129 

The conservation of iconic objects Per Cullhed .................................................... 135 

The Linnean collections at Uppsala University Roland Moberg .......................... 141 

Linnaeus’ specimens of mammals and birds Anthea Gentry ................................ 145 

The Linnaeus Link Project Carol Gökçe ............................................................... 153 

Linnaean Landscapes Mariette Manktelow ......................................................... 155 

A Tribute to Linnaeus at the Chelsea Flower Show 2007 Ulf Nordfjell .............. 163 

Naming Nature: The Future of the Linnaean System Sandra Knapp ................. 167

Linnaeus Legacy Pt 1 web 08-07-08.p65 - The Linnean Society of ...

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