by What Linnaeus Saw- A Scientist's Quest to Name Every Living Thing (retail) (epub)
1743, June 14—Daughter Elizabeth Christina (Lisa Stina) is born.
1744, September 8—Daughter Sara Magdalena (Sara Lena) is born and dies two weeks later.
December 19—Linnaeus’s thesis on the plant peloria is defended by student Daniel Rudberg.
1745, August—Publishes Flora Suecica (Swedish flora).
October—Publishes Ölanska och Gothländska Resa (Öland and Götland journey), account of his 1741 expedition to the Swedish islands in the Baltic.
1746—Crown Prince Adolf Fredrik gives Linnaeus a North American animal, later identified as a raccoon. Publishes Fauna Suecica (Swedish animals) and Sponsalia Plantarum (Betrothal of plants, in which he cites his 1723 pumpkin experience).
June–August—Conducts a natural resources survey of the Swedish province of West Götland with student Eric Lidbeck.
1747, April—Publishes Wästgöta-Resa (West Götland journey), an account of his 1746 expedition.
June—Publishes Flora Zeylanica (The flora of Ceylon; today called Sri Lanka).
1748, April—Publishes a revision to his early plant list, Hortus Upsaliensis (The Uppsala garden).
May 12—Father dies. Linnaeus suffers a deep depression as a result.
1749—Publishes Materia Medica (Medical material), vol. 1, and Amoenitates Academicae (Academic delights), the first collection of his student theses, 1747–69.
May 17–August 13—Leads students on expedition to study the natural resources of the province of Skåne.
December 24—Daughter Lovisa is born on Christmas Eve.
1750—Begins to call his students who travel the globe for natural science his “apostles.”
1751, January 24—Daughter Sara Christina (Sara Stina) is born.
February–December—Publishes Skanska Resa (Skåne journey) and Philosophia Botanica (The science of botany). Describes and catalogs King Adolf Fredrik’s collection of animals preserved in alcohol, stuffed birds, pinned insects, and shells in little boxes at the royal palace at Ulriksdal (publishes in 1754). Catalogs Queen Lovisa Ulrika’s collection of shells and insects at Drottningholm Palace (publishes in 1764).
Linnaeus in 1747, smoking a tobacco pipe to dull the pain of toothache.
1753—Named by King Adolf Fredrik a Knight of the Polar Star, an honor awarded for contributions in science, literature, or other important civic work.
May 1—Publishes Species Plantarum (The species of plants), the first known work using Linnaeus’s binomial nomenclature system, which later is accepted as the starting point of modern botanical naming.
1754, April 7—Son Johannes is born.
1757, March 7—Son Johannes dies of fever one month before his third birthday.
April 7—King Adolf Fredrik grants Linnaeus nobility (officially accepted in 1762).
November 8—Daughter Sophia is born.
1758—Buys the country estate of Hammarby, about 9 miles (15 kilometers) outside Uppsala, adding two neighboring farms, Sävja and Edeby, the following year. Publishes the important tenth edition of Systema Naturae (animals, February; plants, June); the edition is later accepted as the starting point of modern zoological naming.
1759, January—Carl Linnaeus the Younger is appointed demonstrator of the Uppsala garden.
1762—Changes the family name to von Linné, after his ennoblement becomes official (Linné is the name by which he is still known in Sweden). Expands the house at Hammarby, which becomes the family’s summer home. Nineteen-year-old daughter Lisa Stina publishes a paper based on her observations of nasturtiums.
1764—Suffers an attack of Uppsala fever, or malaria.
July 12—Lisa Stina marries Carl Frederick Bergencrantz.
1766—Fire destroys a third of Uppsala, close to Linnaeus’s house there. He designs a museum to house his natural history objects at Hammarby.
May—Publishes twelfth edition (his final) of Systema Naturae, in which he deletes the phrase “no new species,” acknowledging the possibility of the emergence of new plant species.
July 28—Granddaughter Sara Elisabeth Bergencrantz is born at Hammarby. Later, to escape her abusive husband, Lisa Stina and her daughter move permanently to Hammarby.
1768—Queen Lovisa gives Linnaeus a pesky monkey named Grinn.
1769—Completes construction of the little museum at Hammarby.
1772—Retires from post of rector of Uppsala University.
1774—Suffers a stroke and is temporarily partly paralyzed. His health continues to decline.
1776, winter—Suffers another stroke.
1777, December 30—Has a severe seizure.
1778, January 10—Carl Linnaeus dies.
GLOSSARY OF BOTANICAL AND SCIENTIFIC TERMS
Binomial—a two-word name
Botanist—a specialist who studies plants
Botany—the branch of science concerned with the study of plants
Bract—a small modified leaf growing directly below the calyx of a plant, or on the peduncle of a flower; sometimes larger and more colorful than the flower itself, as in the banana
Calyx—a whorl of leaves enclosing a flower still in the bud
Class—a group of animals or plants with shared characteristics, which comes between “division” and “order” in Linnaeus’s five-tiered classification system
Classification—the arrangement of animals and plants into groups
Dioecious—having male and female flowers on separate plants
Embryo—in botany, a new plant developing within a seed; in zoology, an animal’s unborn, unhatched, or incompletely developed offspring
Entomologist—a specialist who studies insects
Evolution—the transformation of animals, plants, and other organisms into different forms through changes over generations
Genus—a group of species having common structural characteristics different from those of any other group. Plural: genera
Geology—the branch of science concerned with the study of the earth
Habitat—the geographic area where a plant or animal naturally grows and lives
Herbarium—a collection of dried plants arranged systematically in a book, case, or room
Hybrid—the offspring of two plants of different species
Inflorescence—a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem
Mammal—an animal in the class Mammalia, characterized by mammary glands that secrete milk to feed the young
Metamorphosis—the natural process by which an animal or plant changes in form or shape
Monoecious—having male flowers that produce pollen and female flowers that bare fruit on the same plant, such as the pumpkin plant
Mutation—in Linnaeus’s time, a change or transformation; today, a change in an organism’s genetic material which may be passed on to future generations resulting in a new and different form
Nomenclature—a system of names
Order—a subdivision of a class which groups one or more genera sharing common features, ancestry or both
Peduncle—the stalk of a flower or fruit, or of a cluster of flowers or fruits
Pharmacology—the branch of medical science concerned with drugs and their uses
Pistil—the female reproductive organ of a flowering plant, usually comprised of three main parts: an ovary, a style, and a stigma
Pollen—originally, a fine powder; later, microscopic grains produced by a flowering plant
Quadruped—an animal with four feet
Rhizome—a horizontal underground stem which sends out roots and leafy shoots to produce new plants
Sexual reproduction—the creation of animals or plants which takes place by means of physical connection, and the fusion of two cells to produce a new cell
Species—a group of individuals sharing common features and/or ancestry, capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring
Stamen—the male, or fertilizing, organ of a flowering plant, comprised of two parts: an anther (a sac containing pollen) and a
filament (a thin stalk which supports the anther)
Taxonomist—an expert who organizes living things following a particular order or arrangement
Taxonomy—the branch of science concerned with the systematic classification of living organisms
Umbellate—a mass of florets supported on stems of nearly equal length (called umbels) which grow out from a center, as in the plant Queen Anne’s lace
Zoology— the branch of science concerned with the study of animals
NOTES
Many quotations appearing in this book are translations of their original Swedish, Latin, German, or Dutch texts. Full publication details can be found in Sources.
References to Linnaeus’s correspondence are identified according to the system used by Uppsala University Library. Letters are also sourced, where possible, to Smith, ed., A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus and Other Naturalists.
EPIGRAPH
7 “what all children”: Yoon, Naming Nature, 5.
INTRODUCTION: SJUPP’S STORY
11 “If you do not know the names”: Linnaeus, Philosophia Botanica, 169.
15 “obstinate as a knife grinder”: Blunt, Linnaeus, 153.
16 “like a spider’s web”: Linnaeus, “Beskrifning På et Americanskt diur” (Description of an American animal), translated by Janet Anderson, emails to author, October 21–23, 2012.
18 “the one who scratches”: Translated by Joseph Bruchac, email to author, May 10, 2017.
18 “really fine eating”: Linnaean Correspondence L0840. Also in Smith, ed., A Selection of the Correspondence, vol. 1, 21.
CHAPTER 1: NOT ONE PUMPKIN
22 “though we be confined”: Linnaeus, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Natural History, Husbandry, and Physick, 9.
28 “Brutal teachers”: Blunt, Linnaeus, 16.
29 “If there is a single way”: Linnaeus, Notebook, The Transcription,7.
29 “The best medicines”: Linnaeus, Notebook, The Transcription, 7.
29 “Many have not recovered”: Linnaeus, Notebook, The Transcription, 7.
30 “Anyone who smears himself”; “Do not take the risk”: Linnaeus, Notebook, The Transcription, 40.
36 “Is poor Carl to become nothing”: “Linnaeus at School,” Linné Online, http://www2.linnaeus.uu.se/online/life/4_3.html. Accessed July 21, 2017.
36 “a man learned, honest, mild”: Linnaeus, Notebook, The Transcription, 187.
37 “to be medicus and botanicus”: “What you enjoy doing, you will do well,” Linné Online, www2.linnaeus.uu.se/online/physician/2_3.html. Accessed July 21, 2017.
39 “volatile spirit . . . breath”: Vaillant, “Lecture on the Structure and Function of Flowers,” 103.
41 “embryos with powdery feet”: Vaillant, “Lecture on the Structure and Function of Flowers,” 115.
CHAPTER 2: EVERY GROWING THING
43 “Minerals grow”: Linnaeus, Systema Naturae 1735, 19.
46 “We immediately started talking”: Blunt, Linnaeus, 29.
48 “I am no poet”: Blunt, Linnaeus, 32.
49 “Preliminaries on the marriage of plants”: Fries, Linnaeus, 46.
55 “the great inconvenience of copying”: Koerner, Linnaeus, 40.
56 “the other would regard it as sacred duty”: Blunt, Linnaeus, 30.
CHAPTER 3: INTO THE ARCTIC!
My main source for this chapter was the translation of Linnaeus’s journal, Lachesis Lapponica; Or, A Tour In Lapland. All citations refer to this journal unless otherwise noted.
57 “Mountains upon mountains”: vol. 1, 269.
59 “mathematical webs”: vol. 1, 23.
59 “spar full of talc”: vol. 1, 47.
59 “malignant beings of gigantic”: vol. 1, 46.
60 “dreadfully bad”: vol. 1, 16.
61 “as thick as a goose quill”: vol. 1, 98.
63 “scampered away over hills”: vol. 1, 97.
65 “a range of white clouds”: vol. 1, 269.
65 “When I reached”: vol. 1, 283–84.
66 “The lofty mountains”: vol. 1, 289–90.
67 “lofty icy mountain”: vol. 1, 321–22.
68 “In spring they eat fish”: vol. 1, 330.
68 “They always let their boiled meat”: vol. 1, 334.
68 “cram themselves”: vol. 1, 332.
71 “half dead with cold”: vol. 1, 158.
73 “[I]n other regions”: vol. 1, 152. Smith’s footnote identifies the fungus as agaric of willow, Boletus suaveolens.
77 “lowly, insignificant”: Schiebinger, Plants and Empire, 202.
79 “absentibus parentibus”, “called on S. L. M.”, “explicitly solicited”: Linnaeus, “Almanac,” 7.
79 “A Lover’s Farewell”: Linnaeus, “En Älskandes Vale,” translated by Ingvar Svanberg, email to author, August 18, 2018.
CHAPTER 4: DRAGON WITH SEVEN HEADS
80 “Many people said it was the only one”: Fries, Linnaeus, 138.
82 “All this skilful man thinks”: Linnaeus, Musa Cliffortiana, 16.
84 “watery bubbles”: Linnaeus, Lachesis Lapponica, 1:262.
85 “A painter’s invention”: Linnaeus, Systema Naturae 1735, 29.
86 “if ever one has been seen”: Linnaeus, Systema Naturae 1735, 29.
86 “After having been burned”: Linnaeus, Systema Naturae 1735, 30.
CHAPTER 5: CAN BANANAS GROW IN HOLLAND?
91 “Dawn was always a friend”: Linnaean Correspondence, L0059, translated by the author.
92 “paradise”: Linnaeus, Musa Cliffortiana, 22.
96 “passed a miserable life”: Linnaeus, Musa Cliffortiana, 157.
98 “a Monsieur Boerhaave, Europa”: Blunt, Linnaeus, 95.
98 “These flowers did not all grow”: Linnaeus, Musa Cliffortiana, 159.
99 “What is the meaning of honeyed liquid”: Linnaeus, Musa Cliffortiana, 171.
99 “What is analogous”: Linnaeus, Musa Cliffortiana, 171.
99 “like spiders’ webs, white, parallel and tenacious”: Linnaeus, Musa Cliffortiana, 171.
101 “a goddess of the ancients”: Linnaeus, Musa Cliffortiana, 26.
101 “The pulp was very sweet”: Linnaeus, Musa Cliffortiana, 219.
CHAPTER 6: NATURE’S BLUEPRINT
The account of Peter Artedi’s life is based primarily on the biography that Linnaeus added to Artedi’s posthumously published book on fish.
103 “We count the number of species”: Linnaeus, Philosophia Botanica, principle 157. [Author substituted “count” for “reckon.”]
105 “a lonely life, went to the tavern”: Blunt, Linnaeus, 102.
105 “1. All things that are found”: Linnaeus, Philosophia Botanica, 9.
105 “He kept me long, too long”: Blunt, Linnaeus, 102.
106 “Nulla dies sine linea”: attributed to the Greek painter Apelles of Kos (4th century BC) by Pliny the Elder. Pulteney, A General View of the Writings of Linnaeus, 17.
107 “If according to gross calculation”: Linnaeus, Miscellaneous Tracts, 125.
114 “It is beyond controversy”: Linnaeus, Systema Naturae 1735, 20.
115 “poisonous, stinging, sulphurous smoke”: Fries, Linnaeus, 93.
115 “filled with steam”: Fries, Linnaeus, 93.
116 “I feel dizzy”: Frängsmyr, Linnaeus, 154.
116 “would gladly have believed”: Frängsmyr, Linnaeus, 151.
119 “autopsy”: Koerner, Linnaeus, 39.
120 “How Linnaeus Organized Plants into Classes”: Adapted from the chart prepared by William T. Stearn in Blunt, Linnaeus, 248.
122 “lewd . . . such immorality”: Blunt, Linnaeus, 121.
122 “ungrateful cuckoo”: Linnaeus Correspondence, L0165, notation 4.
123 “every body ought to have them”: Linnaeus Correspondence, L5624. Also in Smith, A Selection of the Correspondence, vol. 2, 174.
123 “When he was a beginner”: Blunt, 105.
126 “He was generous with his praise”:
Blunt, Linnaeus, 172.
128 “perhaps the only lady that makes profession”: Linnaeus Correspondence, L2194. Also in Smith, A Selection of Correspondence, vol. 1, 40.
128 “She deserves to be celebrated”: Linnaeus Correspondence, L2051. Also in Smith, A Selection of the Correspondence, vol. 1, 39.
CHAPTER 7: LAST NAME, FIRST NAME
130 “The shorter the specific name”: Linnaeus, Philosophia Botanica, 246.
131 “spineless stem”: translated by the author with Carl George, email to author, September 7, 2016.
132 “an owl’s nest”: Blunt, Linnaeus, 148.
136 “An economist without knowledge of nature”: Koerner, Linnaeus, 103.
142 “a clapper into a bell”: Koerner, Linnaeus, 54.
143 “Names used by the ancients”: Linnaeus, Philosophia Botanica, 246.
144 “are difficult to pronounce”: Linnaeus, Philosophia Botanica, 214.
144 “liable to damage”, “disgusting”: Linnaeus, Philosophia Botanica, 214.
CHAPTER 8: MOST CONTROVERSIAL PLANT
151 “Fantastic . . . calf with a wolf’s head”: Gustafsson, “Linnaeus’ Peloria,” 242.
151 “Here is something remarkable . . . daffodils”: Gustafsson, “Linnaeus’ Peloria,” 242.
157 “strange and unbelievable”: Gustafsson, “Linnaeus’ Peloria,” 242.
158 “Nothing can”: Gustafsson, “Linnaeus’ Peloria,” 242.
158 “[What causes] the transformation”: Gustafsson, “Linnaeus’ Peloria,” 243.
158 “If with certainty”: Gustafsson, “Linnaeus’ Peloria,” 244.
159 “Your Peloria has upset everyone”: Gustafsson, “Linnaeus’ Peloria,” 243.
159 “[B]e wary of the dangerous sentence”: Gustafsson, “Linnaeus’ Peloria,” 243.
160 “By careful examination”: Gustafsson, “Linnaeus’ Peloria,” 244.
160 “Nullae species novae”: Linnaeus, Systema Naturae 1735, 18.
161 “monstre par excès”: Glass, “Eighteenth-Century Concepts,” 231.
162 “the daughters of time”: Fries, Linnaeus, 361.
CHAPTER 9: HUMAN VS. ANIMAL
163 “If I were to call man an ape”: Broberg, “Homo sapiens,” 172.
165 “There are none so delightful”: VanHaelen, “Local Sites, Foreign Sights,” 264.