Rocky Road: Linnaeus

Linnaeus

From Fossils: Evidence of Vanished Worlds by Yvette Gayrard-Valy

In the early 18th century, mushrooms were mushrooms. Some were tasty, some were nasty and some would kill you, but they were all mushrooms.

During the lifetime of Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, botanists began to realize that the casual terminology of the day couldn't accurately name the species of Europe, much less the discoveries in the New World. They dabbled with different approaches, often with mixed success. Linnaeus shared the frustration of many of his contemporaries at some nomenclature experiments, once remarking, "The names bestowed on plants by the ancient Greeks and Romans I commend, but I shudder at the sight of most of those given by modern authorities." He had good reason to shudder; one "formal" name for the tomato was Solanum caule inerme herbaceo, foliis pinnatis incisis, racemis simplicibus.

Perhaps Linnaeus was well suited to defining a new naming convention as he lived in a time and place where people had to do as much for themselves. His father, Nils, would have traditionally called himself "son of Ingemar" but his enrollment at a university required him to supply a surname. He chose "lind" after the linden tree. Years later, after Carl had become famous, he happily upgraded his own name to Carl von Linné.

As a young man, Linnaeus traveled through Lapland, making careful observations not just of the geography and natural settings, but also the customs of the locals, and his thorough reports were appreciated by the Swedish Parliament. While in his twenties, Linnaeus traveled to Holland and earned a medical degree — and published several books. Still a young man, he returned to Sweden and settled down in marriage, eventually taking a position at Uppsala University. His traveling days ended with his youth; after that, his students did the traveling. Linnaeus devoted himself to nomenclature.

Although naturalists had struggled for some time with how to best classify species, Linnaeus successfully introduced the system of classifying organisms, a system that now includes kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. The genus and species name for any particular organism became its scientific name in this new framework of binomial nomenclature. He also adopted (though didn't originate) the practice of associating a species with a type specimen, the example by which the species is identified. His own method for determining plant species was to start with an specimen from a garden, herbarium sheet (dried plant mounted on paper) or illustration and describe it fully. After that, he collected additional specimens that represented the species. Next, he discarded the "deviants" to determine the "constant" characters.

When Linnaeus first released his Systema Naturae in 1735, it was a slim 14 pages. In it, he grouped animals into the categories of Quadrupedia (four-footers), Aves (birds), Amphibia (including reptiles), Pisces, Insecta and Vermes. Vermes included worms and just about every other slimy, slithery kind of creature that didn't fit nicely into any other category. The last edition of Systema Naturae released during his lifetime (the 12th) was 2,300 pages long. Before he died, he catalogued roughly 7,700 plants and 4,400 animals. The list of named species grows to this day. Nature doesn't always obligingly organize itself into this classification system, and the textbook kingdoms at the top have recently been reworked, but this naming system has persisted largely intact to the present day. Three centuries after Linnaeus's birth, the savant was complemented by Akihito, 125th Emperor of Japan and ichthyolotgist, who praised binomial nomenclature's ability to give scientists a universal basis for taxonomy. What has also survived to the present day is the emphasis on type specimens and the practice of giving priority to the first person to name a new species. Type specimens and rigid adherence to the first name given by the first discoverer has proven to be a mixed blessing, raising questions about the accuracy of many species descriptions.

From the time it was introduced, the Linnaean system had both competition and detractors. Michel Adanson of France proposed a different system that organized plants globally, and incorporated indigenous terms to name them. (Linnaeus scoffed that many of those terms "can scarcely be pronounced by our tongues.") Buffon, meanwhile, argued that nature "advances by imperceptible nuances" that no naming system could capture.

If Linnaeus's critics chafed at his naming system, they were truly disgusted by something else he publicized: Plants reproduce sexually. Up to that time, the gentle study of botany had been sufficiently delicate to serve as a pastime for well-bred ladies. Then Linnaeus ruined everything. The Reverend Richard Polwhele observed "boys and girls botanizing together" with horror; the Bishop of Carlisle doubted that "virtuous students" would be able to follow the indecent analogies; English naturalist William Goodenough scowled at Linnaeus's "disgusting names, his nomenclatural wantonness, vulgar lasciviousness, and the gross prurience of his mind." (Not everybody was as shocked as you might suspect. In the mid 18th century, a Finnish medical student traveling through Quebec, Canada observed that even "priests and Jesuits," apparently inspired by Linnaeus's finds about plant reproduction, cheerfully collecting.)

"Who would have thought that bluebells, lilies and onions could be up to such immorality?" sniffed academician Johann Siegesbeck. But Linnaeus had the last laugh; he named an ugly little weed Siegesbeckia orientalis.

Linnaeus was an interesting man. Though he wrote a number of useful books on plant classification that would make botany possible "Yes, even for Women themselves," he kept his own daughters semi-literate, wanting them to be good housekeepers rather than uppity bluestockings. Then, as now, women did most of the cooking, but when Linnaeus (a sort of 18th-century foodie) packed lecture halls on food preparation, women weren't invited. He adored his pet raccoon Sjupp, who had an affinity for "eggs, almonds, raisins, sugared cakes, sugar and fruit of every kind," who mugged students carrying such treats, and who never forgave anybody who refused him anything. But after a dog mauled the raccoon to death, Linnaeus promptly dissected it. And though the image-conscious Linnaeus later credited a sudden flash of insight, binomial nomenclature was the result of long painstaking work by Linnaeus and — especially — his young, poor students, whom he often employed as industrial spies. Perfectly at ease with his own greatness, he recommended that his gravestone read, "Prince of Botanists," and he couldn't have minded that his portrait was painted more than 500 times. He enjoyed lucrative positions as a governmental advisor and occasionally devoted himself to the unrealistic goals of cultivating Asian and American cash crops on the Arctic tundra and culturing freshwater pearls in Lapland river mussels.

For more information:
Cultures of Natural History edited by Jardine, Secord and Spary
Linnaeus by Wilfrid Blunt
Fossils: Evidence of Vanished Worlds by Yvette Gayrard-Valy
Human Origins: The Search for Our Beginnings by Herbert Thomas
Voyages of Discovery by Tony Rice
Fossil Revolution by Douglas Palmer
Plants and Empire by Londa Schiebinger
The Naming of Names by Anna Pavord
From Private to Public edited by Marco Beretta
Linnaeus in Italy edited by Beretta and Tosi
The Great Naturalists edited by Robert Huxley
Pandora's Breeches by Patricia Fara
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
"The Royal Raccoon from Swedesboro" by Henry Nicholls in Nature Magazine, March 15, 2007 issue
"The Love of Plants" by Staffan Müller-Wille in Nature Magazine, March 15, 2007 issue
"The Love of Plants" by Staffan Müller-Wille in Nature Magazine, March 15, 2007 issue
"Linnaeus and Taxonomy in Japan" by His Majesty The Emperor of Japan in Nature Magazine, July 12, 2007 issue
"In the Classification Kingdom, Only the Fittest Survive" by Carol Kaesuk Yoon in The New York Times, October 11, 2005
"A Passion for Order" by David Quammen in National Geographic Magazine, June 2007 issue
"Linnaeus' Herbarium Cabinet: A Piece of Furniture and its Function" by Staffan Müller-Wille in Endeavour Magazine, June 2006 issue
The Gonzo Scientist: Happy 300th Birthday, Linnaeus (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/318/5851/752b)
A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities by Albertus Seba
The Rarest of the Rare by Pick and Sloan
The Lure of Antiquity and the Cult of the Machine by Horst Bredekamp
The Science Book edited by Peter Tallack