LINNAEUS, FATHER OF SYSTEMATIC BIOLOGY

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is well known thanks to his naming of numerous species and classification of the natural realm. Particularly important are his binomial terminology and sexual system of botanical classification, which gained him a great reputation after being presented in his Systema Naturae (1735). Notably, Linnaeus’ scientific achievements extend also into the zoological and mineral kingdoms.

Linnaeus was interested in the entire natural world: he wanted to map the whole of nature. This mapping has given us the naming convention known as the binomial or binary nomenclature, which Linnaeus himself introduced. Linnaeus published a great number of rule-books on which his system is based. After some initial resistance, his terminology and systematic way of classifying plants and animals have come to dominate natural history. Notably, Linnaeus’ system has simplified the scientific dialog about the thousands of new species being discovered around the world.

Linnaeus’ science is based on a rigid terminology and formulates the concept of species. Humans in his system, for example, are known as Homo sapiens and they are primates in the class of mammals, Mammalia. Class “mammalia,” genera “homo,” species “sapiens”—all are concepts coined by Linnaeus.

Carl N. Linnaeus came from a family of farmers and clergymen in the village of Stenbrohult, some miles Southeast of Växjö in the Province of Småland, at about the same time as Sweden entered a prolonged period of peace known as the "Era of Liberty" during which imperial ambitions waned and national development became the paramount concern.

His early education led him toward medicine rather than the church, and also brought him into contact with the works of Tournefort and Vaillant on floral morphology, and with the recently discovered evidence of the sexuality of plants.

As a university student at Uppsala he prepared a manuscript on the sexuality of plants known as Praeludia Sponsalia Plantarum (On the prelude to the wedding of plants), 1729. Even as an unpublished manuscript, this work helped to make a name for Linnaeus as a botanist. His unusual ability and enthusiasm led to his appointment as demonstrator in botany at the University of Uppsala.

In 1732 he made an expedition to Lapland using a grant he obtained from the Swedish Royal Society of Science. Among his many discoveries and collections there was the small, creeping twin flower that he named after himself, Linnaea borealis.

After university studies, first at Lund, later at Uppsala, he went to Holland, where he defended his doctoral thesis, on malaria (1735).

Linnaeus spent the years 1735-1738 in Holland getting a medical degree there, publishing the botanical manuscripts he had prepared in Sweden, meeting other European botanists, and establishing himself as a botanist of great promise. In addition to the Swedish manuscripts, Linnaeus also described the plants growing in the gardens of his patron, George Clifford, in Hortus Cliffortianus (1738).

Linnaeus most important contribution was Systema Naturae of 1735-68, which included the sexual system of botanical classification. By means of this system virtually any plant can be assigned to one of 24 classes based on the number and arrangement of stamens in each flower. Within each class the plant is subsequently assigned to an order based on the number of pistils ineachflower.

Linnaeus was given the Chair of Medicine at Uppsala University in 1741. A few years earlier he was a founding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. As professor, he published a large number of books on medicine and biology. He also corresponded extensively with well-known scientists throughout the world. Linnaeus was popular as a teacher and his excursions into the surroundings of Uppsala (the herbationes) were much discussed and attracted many students.

The Royal Academy of Sciences entrusted Linnaeus with the task of traveling through several Swedish provinces in order to find economic resources worth developing. During these expeditions he kept diaries in which he gave careful descriptions of natural phenomena and assets that could be exploited. He also recorded local customs. The accounts of his journeys to Lapland, Öland, Gotland, Västergötland and Skåne are still frequently read and quoted.

In 1741 Linnaeus started to improve the existing botanical garden in Uppsala, the present Linnaeus Garden (Linnéträdgården), creating one of the foremost gardens in the world. This was achieved in collaboration with Carl Hårleman, the most outstanding architect in Sweden at that time. Linnaeus and his family lived in a house, located in the garden, which is now the Linnaeus museum. Carl Linnaeus lived and worked in that house until his death.

It was in that garden that Linnaeus began his teaching, referring to cultivated and wild plants. He also kept animals in the garden, for he taught zoology as well.

In 1751, Linnaeus asserted in his Philosophia Botanica: “In the natural sciences the principles of truth are to be confirmed by observation.”

Linnaeus called the students whom he especially valued and sent them across the globe to discover and study the natural species. Among his seventeen students were Pehr Kalm, traveling to North America; Daniel Solander, traveling on Cook's first round-the-world voyage; Anders Sparrman, traveling on Cook's second round-the-world voyage; and Carl Peter Thunberg, traveling to South Africa, Japan, Java and Ceylon.

In various publications, Linnaeus provided a concise, usable survey of the world's plants and animals as then known, 7,700 species of plants and 4,400 species of animals.

LINNAEUS’ LEGACY

The binomial nomenclature

In general, most living things are referred to by their common or colloquial names. But this can be very misleading and confusing when one realizes that these names can vary greatly from place to place and country to country.

Natural creatures and plants have therefore been given a two-part Latin name which has been universally adopted. Every new species that is discerned and described is given a scientific name based on the 'binomial classification' pioneered by Linnaeus during the eighteenth century. Linnaeus has described and given names to thousands of plants and animals found in Sweden and abroad.  The binomial system he devised is used by all scientists today.

Linnaeus took up the challenge of tackling classification. In the tenth edition of his momentous work, Systema Naturae, published in 1758, he carefully listed and described plants and animals known to him, using two Latin names for each species. For the first time in history, a consistent and concise system of nomenclature for natural things had been formulated. Of course, the binomial system, as it was named, was not immediately accepted. It was considered as unnecessary and even revolutionary. In the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries the common names began to disappear from scientific publications: this fact was to mark the triumph of the binomial system of nomenclature formulated by Linnaeus.

The name of a particular species is structured accordingly. Let’s take, for example, a popular and large species, commonly known as the coconut palm, but correctly named thus:

Cocos nucifera. Linnaeus 1758

The first of the two Latin names refers to the genus or generic name, the group to which the species and its close relatives belong, and is correctly started with a capital letter. The second name, not capitalized, is the species or specific name.

Linnaeus thus links a noun (first, generic name) with a descriptive adjective (second, specific name), helping to identify the species concerned and limiting the application of its two-word name to that species alone.

The combined, binomial scientific name should be unique within the living world.

It is used internationally and does not change from language to language.

Generic names cannot be used for more than one group of living beings and a specific name cannot be used for any other species in that particular genus.

The general adoption by botanists and zoologists of this consistent two-word nomenclature for species during the second-half of the eighteenth century came about because Linnaeus introduced it in comprehensive works which naturalists soon found indispensable.

For every species so described there is an authority, known as the author: the biologist, scientist or even layman who first published a valid description of the species and named it. This is usually via a scientific publication or journal. The date of this publication or the author’s name is often given in formal literature.

The name of the person who first described the species and the year during which the description was first published may be added as well. The names of certain well known scientists who have discovered and described thousands of species are sometimes abbreviated. Linnaeus is often abbreviated to 'L.'

Linnaea borealis was given its species name to honor Linnaeus, who called the flower "my herb" as he saw it during his journey through Lapland, where it was abundant in the forests.

In his Flora Suecica, Linnaeus states that its scent is reminiscent of candy, especially at night, when the scent is so strong that it is recognizable from considerable distance. Elsewhere the Swedish naturalist was to add telling information about it:

Linnaea: A plant of Lapland, lowly, insignificant, disregarded, flowering but for a brief space—from Linnaeus, who resembles it.

Today Linnaea borealis is the provincial flower of Småland, where Linnaeus was born three hundred years ago.

The classification system for plants

Linnaeus’ sexual system of botanical classification focuses on the flower and groups into 24 classes according to the number and arrangements of its sexual organs. Such classes in turn are divided into orders, genera and species.

Linnaeus' classification was immediately criticized, not so much for its scientific inadequacy as for its purported immorality. One of his contemporaries said: The "loathsome harlotry of several males to one female would not have been permitted in the vegetable kingdom by the Creator." Yet, surprisingly, much of the criticism was invited by Linnaeus' imaginative and thought-provoking descriptions of plant sexuality:

LINNAEUS’ CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM FOR PLANTS

(I) Public Marriages (Flowers visible to everyone = Phanerogamia [plants with conspicuous flowers])

1. Monoclinous (Husband and wife have the same bed [hermaphrodite flowers: stamens and pistils in the same flower])
   1. Without Affinity (Husbands not related to each other [stamens not united by any of their parts])
      1. Without Subordination (All the males of equal rank [stamens not in set proportion])
         1. Monandria - One husband in marriage [a single stamen → A]  
         2. Diandria - Two husbands in the same marriage [stamens 2 → B]
         3. Triandria - Three husbands in the same marriage [C]
         4. Tetrandria - Four husbands in the same marriage [D]
         5. Pentandria - Five husbands in the same marriage [E]
         6. Hexandria - Six husbands in the same marriage [F]
         7. Heptandria - Seven husbands in the same marriage [G]
         8. Octandria - Eight husbands in the same marriage [H]
         9. Enneandria - Nine husbands in the same marriage [I]
         10. Decandria - Ten husbands in the same marriage [K]
         11. Dodecandria - Twelve to nineteen husbands in the same marriage [L]
         12. Icosandria - Generally twenty husbands in the same marriage [filaments attached to calyx → M]
         13. Polyandria - Twenty males or more in the same marriage [filaments not attached to calyx → N]
      2. With Subordination (Some males above the others [Two stamens always shorter than the others])
         1. Didynamia - Four husbands, two taller than the other two [stamens 2 long and 2 short → O]
         2. Tetradynamia - More than four husbands, two shorter than the others [stamens 4 long and 2 short → P]
   2. With Affinity (Husbands related to each other [stamens united with each other or with the pistil])

1.      Monadelphia - Husbands, like brothers, arise from one base   [stamens in one phalanx or bundle → Q]

2.      Diadelphia - Husbands arise from two bases, as if from two mothers [stamens in two phalanges → R]

3.      Polyadelphia - Husbands arise from more than two mothers [stamens in three or more phalanges → S]

4.      Syngenesia - Husbands joined together at the top [union of stamens confined to anthers → T]

5.      Gynandria - Husbands and wives growing together [male organs attached to and standing upon the female → U]

1. Diclinous (Husband and wife have separate beds [separate male and female flowers of the same species])

1.      Monoecia - Husbands live with their wives in the same house, but have different beds [male and female flowers on the same plant → V]

2.      Dioecia - Husbands and wives have different houses [male and female flowers on different plants → X]

3.      Polygamia - Husbands live with wives and concubines [male and female flowers mixed with hermaphrodite flowers, the unisexual flowers sometimes on the same, sometimes on different plants → Y]

(II) Clandestine Marriages (Flowers scarcely visible to the naked eye)

Cryptogamia - Nuptials are celebrated privately [plants without proper flowers → Z]

Each species has a double name in Latin (binomial nomenclature). Each genus may have several species, but each species is always unique. While Linnaeus’ sexual system of botanical classification doesn’t entirely correspond to what we know today about the phylogeny of plants, the binary nomenclature is still used and so are many of the species names given by Linnaeus.

Sources: Embassy of Sweden, Manila, www.swedenabroad.com/manila; The Swedish Institute, Stockholm, www.si.se;  Sven Hörnel, Subarktiskt land, Sweden, 1991, p.143:“Linnaeaboralis”; Gunnar Broberg, Carl Linnaeus, Stockholm: The Swedish Institute, 2006;  Wilfrid Blunt, Linnaeus: The Compleat Naturalist, London: Frances Lincoln, 2004; Jan Peter-Lahall, Enchanted Land: Pictures from Nature in Sweden, Örebro and Uppsala, 1999; Doreen G. Fernandez, Fruits of the Philippines, Makati City: Bookmark, 1997.

Linnaeus, Father of Systematic Biology. The Linnaeus-Manila Program. Carl Nilsson Linnaeus / Carolus Linnaeus / Carl von Linné. 1707-1778. Tercentenary Celebrations in Manila, Philippines. Education. Lectures. Science and art. Biology. Botany. Zoology. Naming / Taxonomy. Classification. Idea and research, compilation and selection, general layout and sequence, graphic design and digital collages: Mariano Akerman (Akermariano), Buenos Aires and Manila, 2006-2007.

Post A Comment