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Linnaeus, Carolus

Botanist 1707-1778

Carolus Linnaeus was born on May 23, 1707, in Råshult, Sweden. He died on January 10, 1778. Linnaeus was the founder of the modern scientific method of naming plants and animals. He was the first person to name each living thing with two names: the genus (group) and the species (kind). It was Linnaeus who first gave humans the scientific name Homo sapiens. Linnaeus, the son of the parish pastor, showed an early love of flowers. By the age of eight he was nicknamed "the little botanist." Linnaeus studied at the universities of Lund and Uppsala. He was appointed lecturer in botany at Uppsala in 1730. Two years later, with fifty dollars given to him by the Royal Society of Science, he explored Lapland, walking nearly 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) over a five-month period. From this experience, he wrote Flora Lapponica (1737), a book that firmly established his reputation. In 1735 he received his degree in medicine from Uppsala. While in medical school, he had a small botanical garden and wrote careful descriptions of its plants. These notes formed the basis for his later books. In Holland, he published his work on classifying and naming various plants in Systema Naturae (1735), Fundamenta Botanica (1736), Genera Plantarum (1737), and Critica Botanica (1737). Linnaeus created a revolutionary advance by introducing a Latin binomial (two-name) system: each species received a Latin name with two parts (the genus and the species). Linnaeus also recognized other, broader classification groups that are still used today: order, class, and kingdom. His system allowed plants to be placed rapidly in a named category, which was extremely useful during the eighteenth century, when new plants were being discovered at a very fast rate. Linnaeus classified not only plants and animals but also minerals and the kinds of diseases known in his day.

In 1738 Linnaeus returned to Sweden, settling in Stockholm, where he was very successful as a practicing physician. In 1739 he married Sara Moraea, the daughter of a physician. Two years later, he was appointed to the chair of medicine at Uppsala, but after a year he transferred to a chair of botany there. His later years were spent teaching and writing books. In 1761 he was knighted by the Swedish government in recognition of his work.