Carl von Linné: biography of this Swedish naturalist

This was the life of Carl Linnaeus, one of the most relevant naturalists and father of taxonomy.

Known as the greatest taxonomist of all times, Carl von Linné's life is that of an explorer of his own country. Born into a family of Lutheran shepherds, the young man did not want to devote himself to the family trade, but instead focused his attention on the sciences.

As if he were a discoverer of the New World, Carl von Linné was in charge of describing every plant, animal or even culture that was found in the dark forests of his Scandinavian nation, gradually developing the binomial classification system that is still used today by the scientific community.

We will now discover the life of this peculiar Swedish botanist and naturalist, who made his native Sweden the center of botanical and taxonomic studies, through a biography of Carl von Linné. a biography of Carl von Linné.

Brief biography of Carl von Linné

Carl Nilsson Linnæus, known as Carl von Linné or Charles Linnaeus, was born on May 23, 1707, in Råshult, Sweden.Sweden. He was the son of Nils Ingemarsson, a Lutheran pastor with a passion for plants, and Christina Brodersonia, daughter of a Protestant pastor.

Early years

At the age of two he moved with his parents to Stenbronhult, a region in the south of Sweden, characterized by being especially green and full of plants. characterized by being especially green and full of all kinds of plant species. There, his father began to structure and care for the local church garden, enriching it with plants from other regions. Thus, the young Carl learned from his childhood the love of plants and continued this passion inherited from his father to devote himself to the study of botany and animals.

In 1716, Carl began his Latin studies at Vaxjö Cathedral. Already at a young age he showed interest in natural sciences and in the knowledge of species, which led him to start collecting plants and insects. His Latin studies helped him to deepen his scientific knowledge, since Plutarch's language was the vehicle for the transmission of the highest knowledge of the time.

It was at this time that he had the opportunity to meet Johan Rothman, an experienced botanist who introduced the young Carl to the Tournefort classification system, a system that organized the different species of plants in the world.a system that organized plants according to the corolla of their flowers. He also had the opportunity to learn about the work of Sébastien Vaillant on plant reproduction as well as to have access to Herman Boerhaave's "Institutiones medicae".

The young Carl Linnæus was fascinated by everything related to the structure and reproduction of plants right from his childhood. Although he had grown up in a family with a long religious lineage, the young man did not show a religious vocation and preferred to dedicate himself to the world of natural sciences. In 1727 he began his studies in medicine at the University of Lund at the age of twenty, although this discipline did not arouse his interest as much as the search for insects and plants in the surroundings of his university residence.

This interest in plants and animals caught the attention of Kilian Strobaeus, a man who lived in Lund, Sweden.a man who lived in Lund and had an extensive library. Strobaeus gave permission to the young Linnaeus to consult his library, something that had an enormous impact on young Carl's life. It would be this experience that would motivate him in his vocation as a naturalist.

After the first year studying at the University of Lund, he was transferred to the University of Uppsala, which at that time was the main educational center in Sweden.

First expedition

In order to move forward, the young Carl von Linné dedicated himself to teaching botany in order to support himself financially.. In spite of his precarious economic condition, Linnaeus was able to cover the costs of what would end up being his first botanical and ethnological expedition in Lappish lands around 1731. Using only a horse, a few coins, a notebook and a pencil, the young man went into the unknown and dark Nordic forests.

On his journey through Lapland, a region comprising the northern part of present-day Norway, Sweden and Finland, Carl von Linné was able to discover hundreds of species that had never been seen before. was able to discover hundreds of species that had never before been scientifically catalogued.. Although he had never left his own country, Linnaeus felt like a true explorer of the New World, only he was doing it in Sweden itself.

Together with his compulsive obsession for wanting to have everything well organized and meticulously named, Linnaeus began his titanic task of nominating and classifying every specimen, animal or plant, that crossed his path. In addition, he had the opportunity to learn about the Saami peoples, that is, the different Lapp cultures of the region. The work of this period is not only that of a great naturalist but also that of an exhaustive and careful anthropologist.

His observations and findings in Lappish lands would serve him, years later, to publish one of his most important works: "Flora Lapponica".. The studies and data presented in this document aroused the interest of the Swedish scientific community and, also, that of other parts of Europe. His travels in Lapland also motivated him to further study minerals and to propose a classification system for rocks and crystals.

Second expedition

After the success of his first expedition through Lapland, which had helped him to discover a whole new world within his own country, Linnaeus decided to embark on a second expedition in 1734. This time he would do it accompanied by ten volunteers with whom he would dedicate himself to travel and study the flora of the region of Dalarna, in central Sweden. This expedition had the financial contribution of the governor of that region and resulted in the publication of "Iter Dalecarlicum".

In 1735 he had the opportunity to meet the family of Dr. Johan Moraeus, taking special notice of his daughter Sara Lisa. Linnaeus asked Moraeus for his daughter's hand, and although the doctor granted it to him, he made it a precondition for the marriage that he should finish his medical studies at once. Thus, Charles Linnaeus decided to travel to Holland to finish his career in medicine at the University of Harderwijk in the spring of 1735.. There he obtained his doctorate presenting a thesis in which he spoke about the origins of malaria: "Febrium inttermitentium Causa" (Febrium inttermitentium Causa).

Later he would move to Leiden, where he would see several of his most important works published, among which was the "Flora Lapponica" (1737). It would also be here where he would obtain from the senator of that city the necessary financing to publish his most important work: "Systema naturae" (1735).

While still in the Netherlands Carl von Linné had the opportunity to meet great Dutch botanists, among them Jan Frederik Gronovius and George Clifford III, a wealthy plant lover, who entrusted him with the reorganization and care of his private botanical garden. It would be from this work that would be born his work "Hortus Cliffortianus" (Clifford's Garden(Clifford's Garden, 1737), in which he studies and classifies the plants of his rich friend.

Other works published in Holland were "Fundamenta Botanica" and "Bibliotheca Botanica". In 1737 he published "Critica Botanica", "Genera Plantarum", "Hortus Cliffortianus" and "Flora Lapponica". Shortly before leaving Holland, in 1738, he published "Classes Plantarum". In these works he shows his particular system of classification of plants, in which he uses as criteria the characteristics of the reproductive organs of plants..

In 1736 he traveled to Oxford and met outstanding English naturalists, among them the great botanist J. J. Dillenius. He also took the opportunity to visit France and, shortly thereafter, he became the eighth foreign member of the Academy of Sciences in Paris. His influence in the scientific world was booming and thanks to his travels he was able to exchange specimens of plants and animals. He also obtained seeds to reproduce in his many botanical gardens that he himself had founded.

In 1738, he returned to Sweden where, as a medical doctor, he studied and specialized in the treatment of syphilis.. At the University of Uppsala he was awarded for his work in medicine, in addition to receiving the task of reorganizing the botanical garden of the same university. Linnaeus would take this opportunity to apply his already famous binomial taxonomic system.

Professional expeditions

In 1739 he promoted the creation of the Stockholm Academy of Sciences, of which he was the first president. In 1741 he was appointed professor of medical practice at the University of Uppsala and, the following year, was assigned the professorship of botany, dietetics and materia medica, titles much more in keeping with the already extensive practical knowledge he possessed. Holding these professorships, Linnaeus would make the University of Uppsala the center of botanical studies in Europe..

Linnaeus' scientific findings resonated throughout Swedish society to such an extent that the political group of the "hattar" ("hats" in Swedish) began to encourage and support the mercantile and scientific expeditions promoted by the naturalist. Sweden was in full imperialist expansion, and had a great interest in establishing an independent trade from the rest of Europe. That is why the Swedish bourgeoisie began to support any expedition that implied the discovery of a new trade route to any region rich in resources.

Linnaeus played a decisive and influential role in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.. Taking advantage of his managerial position, he made contacts with the Swedish East India Company with the intention of obtaining the necessary financial support to be able to organize his botanical expeditions to inhospitable regions. Not only did he want to thoroughly document all the animal and plant species of Sweden, but also those of the rest of Europe and, if possible, the whole world.

It was then that Linnaeus decided to recruit a group of young students, whom he would baptize as the "apostles", to help him in his many expeditions around the world. They would visit every place there was and to be, both under the command of Linnaeus himself and under the direction of other great explorers such as James Cook.

Despite their commercial and scientific success the expeditions promoted by Linnaeus were very dangerous.. Many of the young students who made up the "apostles" ended up dying or falling prey to insanity due to the harshness of the expeditions. To go far away from mother Sweden was already risky, but to go to unknown territories in South America or Asia was, in many occasions, to visit hell itself.

The Linnaean System in taxonomy

We owe the current binomial system for the classification of species to Charles Linnaeus. We have the first ideas of his theory for this system around 1730, when Linnaeus had already developed his own system of plant classification based on observations made by Vaillant on the reproductive organs of flowering plants. Linnaeus believed that morphology was the perfect basis for organizing botanical systems and applied it in his naturalistic work..

As he discovered and described new species, his system of classification changed. He strove to create a system as natural and as close as possible to reality itself and, although tentatively, his writings suggest certain evolutionary beliefs. Although at first he believed that the species of the earth had been immutable since the Creation, he later changed his mind considering that, through hybridization and cross-pollination, he could create new plant "species".

His most important work in botanical terms is "Species Plantarum", published in 1753.. This book, which is a compilation of all his theoretical and practical work in the field, took him more than five years to write and he believed he would never see it finished. In it he definitively established his binomial system for classifying plants, based on their theoretical resemblance to other species and the characteristics of the variety. He named 8,000 plants.

Linnaeus' binomial system consists of giving two Latin names to each species, thus constituting its scientific name. The first word, beginning with a capital letter, refers to the genus, while the second refers to the species or subspecies of the particular plant, animal or other organism. Both words are either in Latin or are Latinized words from non-Romanic languages.

This system was so functional that it did not take long for it to catch on. In addition, it allowed more "surnames" to be given to the species, establishing other taxa higher than the genus that allowed to specify more concretely where the species was located in the phylogenetic tree.. Naturally, this idea was very advanced for the time and each taxon has been refined over the last 300 years.

For example, the scientific and binomial name of the wolf is "Canis lupus". "Canis" is the common genus with other species, such as the fox. The taxonomic pyramid in which the wolf is found is as follows.

• Species: Canis lupus
• Genus: Canis
• Family: Canids (Canidae)
• Order: Carnivores (Carnivora)
• Class: Mammals (Mammalia)
• Subphylum: Vertebrates (Vertebrata)
• Phylum: Chordates (Chordata)
• Kingdom: Animal

Also, each species can be grouped into subspecies.. In the case of the dog we have "Canis lupus familiaris". This name refers to the fact that, in effect, dogs and wolves are part of the same species but the dog has its own characteristics that make it so different from its wild relative that it is almost another species.

Last years

His last years were spent in Sweden as a professor of medicine and botany. In 1758 he moved he moved to a residence near Hammarby.. In 1762 he received the title that gave him the rank of nobleman for his scientific merits, since with his work he had succeeded in turning the cold and apparently un-European Sweden into a true scientific center. This is the time when Carl Nilsson Linnæus would officially become Carl von Linné.

In the early 1770s Carl von Linné's strength began to fade. During the spring of 1774 he was the victim of a stroke from which he recovered with some sequelae. He would progressively become paralyzed and lose his memory, being unable to recognize the most common and simple of plants. The greatest classifier of living species was no longer able to classify anything. Carl von Linné died on January 10, 1778, at the age of 70.

Bibliographical references:

• Sousby, B.H. (1933): A Catalogue of the Works of Linnaeus. London
• Fries, T. M. (1923): Linnaeus The Story of His Life. London
• Blunt, Wilfrid (1971): The Compleat Naturalist. A life of Linnaeus. London.