Carolus Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné ({{Audio|sv-Carl_von_Linné.ogg|listen}}), and in English usually under the Latinized name Carolus Linnaeus (May 23, 1707 – January 10, 1778), was a Swedish botanist who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of taxonomy. He is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology (see History of ecology).

Biography

Carl Linnaeus was born at Råshult, in the province of Småland in southern Sweden. Like his father and maternal grandfather, Linnaeus was groomed as a youth to be a churchman, but he showed little enthusiasm for it. His interest in botany impressed a physician from his town and he was sent to study at Lund University, transferring to Uppsala University after one year.

Related Topics:
Råshult - Småland - Sweden - Botany - Lund University - Uppsala University

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During this time Linnaeus became convinced that in the stamens and pistils of flowers lay the basis for the classification of plants, and he wrote a short work on the subject that earned him the position of adjunct professor.

Related Topics:
Stamen - Pistils - Flower - Plant

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In 1732 the Academy of Sciences at Uppsala financed his expedition to explore Lapland, then virtually unknown. The result of this was the Flora Laponica published in 1737.

Related Topics:
1732 - Lapland - 1737

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Thereafter Linnaeus moved to the continent. While in the Netherlands he met Jan Frederik Gronovius and showed him a draft of his work on taxonomy, the Systema Naturae. In it, the unwieldy descriptions mostly used at the time, such as "physalis amno ramosissime ramis angulosis glabris foliis dentoserratis", were replaced by the concise and now familiar genus-species names in the form Physalis angulata. Higher taxa were constructed and arranged in a simple and orderly manner. Although the system now known as binomial nomenclature was developed by the Bauhin brothers (see Gaspard Bauhin and Johann Bauhin) almost 200 years earlier, Linnaeus may be said to have popularized it within the scientific community.

Related Topics:
Netherlands - Jan Frederik Gronovius - Systema Naturae - Physalis angulata - Binomial nomenclature - Gaspard Bauhin - Johann Bauhin

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Linnaeus named taxa in ways that personally struck him as common-sensical; for example, human beings are Homo sapiens (see sapience), but he also described a second human species, Homo troglodytes ("cave-dwelling man", by which he meant the chimpanzee currently most often placed in a different genus as Pan troglodytes).

Related Topics:
Sapience - Troglodyte - Chimpanzee - Pan troglodytes

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The group "mammalia" are named for their mammary glands because one of the defining characteristics of mammals is that they nurse their young. Of all the features distinguishing the mammals from other animals, Linnaeus may have picked this one because of his views on the importance of natural motherhood. He campaigned against the practice of wet nursing, declaring that even aristocratic women should be proud to nurse their own children.

Related Topics:
Mammal - Wet nursing

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In 1739 Linnaeus married Sara Morea, daughter of a physician. He ascended to the chair of medicine at Uppsala two years later, soon exchanging it for the chair of Botany. He continued to work on his classifications, extending them to the kingdom of animals and the kingdom of minerals. The last strikes us as somewhat odd, but the theory of evolution was still a long time away, and indeed, the Lutheran Linnaeus would have been horrified by it. Linnaeus was only attempting a convenient way of categorizing the elements of the natural world.

Related Topics:
1739 - Evolution - Lutheran

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The Swedish king, Adolf Fredrik, ennobled Linnaeus in 1757, and after the privy council had confirmed the ennoblement Linnaeus took the surname von Linné, later often signing just Carl Linné. His father, born Nils Ingemarsson, had adopted the Latin surname Linnaeus as more appropriate for a clergyman on his matriculation at Lund University; the name deriving from the lime http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/tilia/tilia/tilicor.html tree after which the family farm, Linnagård, took its name.

Related Topics:
Adolf Fredrik - 1757 - Clergy - Lund University - Lime

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