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Portrait of Carl Linnaeus

Science · Biology

Carl Linnaeus

1707–1778 · Swedish

Botany; taxonomy

Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist, professor at Uppsala, who created the modern system for naming and classifying living things. His Systema Naturae (first edition 1735) ranked nature into kingdoms, classes, orders, genera and species, and his consistent use of two-part Latin names in Species Plantarum (1753) and the tenth edition of Systema Naturae (1758) established binomial nomenclature. Those two works are the formal starting points for naming plants and animals.

How to spot them

  • ▸The 'father of taxonomy'; binomial nomenclature (genus plus species)
  • ▸Systema Naturae and Species Plantarum; ennobled as Carl von Linné
  • ▸Uppsala; a journey through Lapland; students called his 'apostles'
  • ▸Coined the name Homo sapiens; the Linnean Society of London holds his collections

Key discoveries & works

Systema Naturae (1735 (10th edition 1758))

Hierarchical classification of the three kingdoms of nature; the 10th edition is the starting point of zoological nomenclature

Species Plantarum (1753)

Listed every plant species then known with two-word names; the starting point of botanical nomenclature

Binomial nomenclature (1753 onwards)

Consistent two-part Latin names (genus and specific epithet) for every species

Sexual system of plant classification (1735)

Grouped plants by the number and arrangement of their stamens and pistils

Flora Lapponica (1737)

Account of the plants found on his 1732 expedition to Lapland

Coining of the scientific name Homo sapiens (1758)

Placed humans in the animal kingdom among the primates in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae

Key ideas

  • Nested ranks (kingdom, class, order, genus, species) that remain the backbone of biological classification
  • Two-word Latin names gave every species a short, universal label
  • Created the class Mammalia, named after the mammary glands

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born at Råshult in Småland, southern Sweden; died in Uppsala
  • •Qualified as a doctor at Harderwijk in the Dutch Republic in 1735, the same year Systema Naturae was published in Leiden
  • •Ennobled in 1757 (effective 1761), taking the name Carl von Linné
  • •Worked for the Anglo-Dutch banker George Clifford, cataloguing his garden in Hortus Cliffortianus (1737)
  • •His travelling students, the 'apostles', included Daniel Solander, who sailed on Cook's first voyage
  • •His collections were bought by James Edward Smith, who founded the Linnean Society of London in 1788
  • •The twinflower, Linnaea borealis, was named after him and was his favourite plant
  • •The motto 'God created, Linnaeus organised' (Deus creavit, Linnaeus disposuit) is associated with him

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Sources