111 Facts About Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus, known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linne, was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms.

Carl Linnaeus is known as the "father of modern taxonomy".

Carl Linnaeus received most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730.

Carl Linnaeus lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and published the first edition of his in the Netherlands.

Carl Linnaeus then returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala.

Carl Linnaeus was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe at the time of his death.

Carl Linnaeus is considered one of the founders of modern ecology.

Carl Linnaeus's remains constitute the type specimen for the species Homo sapiens following the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, since the sole specimen that he is known to have examined was himself.

Carl Linnaeus was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia.

Carl Linnaeus's father taught him Latin as a small child.

Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Carl Linnaeus and told him their names.

Soon Carl Linnaeus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants.

Carl Linnaeus's father was the first in his ancestry to adopt a permanent surname.

Carl Linnaeus's father began teaching him basic Latin, religion, and geography at an early age.

When Carl Linnaeus was seven, Nils decided to hire a tutor for him.

Carl Linnaeus did not like him, writing in his autobiography that Telander "was better calculated to extinguish a child's talents than develop them".

Carl Linnaeus rarely studied, often going to the countryside to look for plants.

Carl Linnaeus reached the last year of the Lower School when he was fifteen, which was taught by the headmaster, Daniel Lannerus, who was interested in botany.

Carl Linnaeus introduced him to Johan Rothman, the state doctor of Smaland and a teacher at Katedralskolan in Vaxjo.

Carl Linnaeus entered the Vaxjo Katedralskola in 1724, where he studied mainly Greek, Hebrew, theology and mathematics, a curriculum designed for boys preparing for the priesthood.

Rothman believed otherwise, suggesting Carl Linnaeus could have a future in medicine.

Carl Linnaeus taught Linnaeus to classify plants according to Tournefort's system.

Carl Linnaeus was registered as, the Latin form of his full name, which he used later for his Latin publications.

Carl Linnaeus gave the student free admission to his lectures.

In Uppsala, Carl Linnaeus met a new benefactor, Olof Celsius, who was a professor of theology and an amateur botanist.

Carl Linnaeus received Linnaeus into his home and allowed him use of his library, which was one of the richest botanical libraries in Sweden.

Carl Linnaeus's lectures were popular, and Linnaeus often addressed an audience of 300 people.

Over that winter, Carl Linnaeus began to doubt Tournefort's system of classification and decided to create one of his own.

Carl Linnaeus's plan was to divide the plants by the number of stamens and pistils.

Carl Linnaeus began writing several books, which would later result in, for example, and.

Carl Linnaeus produced a book on the plants grown in the Uppsala Botanical Garden,.

That Christmas, Carl Linnaeus returned home to Stenbrohult to visit his parents for the first time in about three years.

Carl Linnaeus's mother had disapproved of his failing to become a priest, but she was pleased to learn he was teaching at the University.

Carl Linnaeus's hope was to find new plants, animals and possibly valuable minerals.

Carl Linnaeus was curious about the customs of the native Sami people, reindeer-herding nomads who wandered Scandinavia's vast tundras.

Carl Linnaeus travelled on foot and horse, bringing with him his journal, botanical and ornithological manuscripts and sheets of paper for pressing plants.

Carl Linnaeus sometimes dismounted on the way to examine a flower or rock and was particularly interested in mosses and lichens, the latter a main part of the diet of the reindeer, a common and economically important animal in Lapland.

Carl Linnaeus travelled clockwise around the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, making major inland incursions from Umea, Lulea and Tornio.

However, on the expedition to Lapland, Carl Linnaeus used Latin names to describe organisms because he had not yet developed the binomial system.

In 1734, Carl Linnaeus led a small group of students to Dalarna.

Carl Linnaeus quickly discovered the specimen was a fake, cobbled together from the jaws and paws of weasels and the skins of snakes.

Carl Linnaeus began working towards his degree as soon as he reached Harderwijk, a university known for awarding degrees in as little as a week.

Carl Linnaeus submitted a dissertation, written back in Sweden, entitled Dissertatio medica inauguralis in qua exhibetur hypothesis nova de febrium intermittentium causa, in which he laid out his hypothesis that malaria arose only in areas with clay-rich soils.

That summer Carl Linnaeus reunited with Peter Artedi, a friend from Uppsala with whom he had once made a pact that should either of the two predecease the other, the survivor would finish the decedent's work.

One of the first scientists Carl Linnaeus met in the Netherlands was Johan Frederik Gronovius, to whom Carl Linnaeus showed one of the several manuscripts he had brought with him from Sweden.

Carl Linnaeus became acquainted with one of the most respected physicians and botanists in the Netherlands, Herman Boerhaave, who tried to convince Carl Linnaeus to make a career there.

Boerhaave offered him a journey to South Africa and America, but Carl Linnaeus declined, stating he would not stand the heat.

Carl Linnaeus had already agreed to stay with Burman over the winter, and could thus not accept immediately.

However, Clifford offered to compensate Burman by offering him a copy of Sir Hans Sloane's Natural History of Jamaica, a rare book, if he let Carl Linnaeus stay with him, and Burman accepted.

Carl Linnaeus was paid 1,000 florins a year, with free board and lodging.

Carl Linnaeus went to London to visit Sir Hans Sloane, a collector of natural history, and to see his cabinet, as well as to visit the Chelsea Physic Garden and its keeper, Philip Miller.

Carl Linnaeus taught Miller about his new system of subdividing plants, as described in.

Carl Linnaeus, nevertheless, applauded Miller's Gardeners Dictionary, The conservative Scot actually retained in his dictionary a number of pre-Linnaean binomial signifiers discarded by Carl Linnaeus but which have been retained by modern botanists.

Carl Linnaeus travelled to Oxford University to visit the botanist Johann Jacob Dillenius.

Carl Linnaeus failed to make Dillenius publicly fully accept his new classification system, though the two men remained in correspondence for many years afterwards.

Carl Linnaeus dedicated his Critica Botanica to him, as "opus botanicum quo absolutius mundus non-vidit".

Carl Linnaeus then returned to Hartekamp, bringing with him many specimens of rare plants.

Carl Linnaeus wrote it in nine months, but it was not published until 1738.

In 1745, Carl Linnaeus inverted the scale to its present standard.

Carl Linnaeus described his findings from the expedition in the book, published the next year.

The journey was successful, and Carl Linnaeus's observations were published the next year in.

In 1750, Carl Linnaeus became rector of Uppsala University, starting a period where natural sciences were esteemed.

Carl Linnaeus's lectures were normally very popular and were often held in the Botanical Garden.

Carl Linnaeus tried to teach the students to think for themselves and not trust anybody, not even him.

Carl Linnaeus joined an ongoing campaign to end this practice in Sweden and promote breast-feeding by mothers.

In 1752 Carl Linnaeus published a thesis along with Frederick Lindberg, a physician student, based on their experiences.

Carl Linnaeus suggested that children might absorb the personality of their wet nurse through the milk.

Carl Linnaeus admired the child care practices of the Lapps and pointed out how healthy their babies were compared to those of Europeans who employed wet nurses.

Carl Linnaeus compared the behaviour of wild animals and pointed out how none of them denied their newborns their breastmilk.

Carl Linnaeus published Species Plantarum, the work which is internationally accepted as the starting point of modern botanical nomenclature, in 1753.

Carl Linnaeus was then seldom seen not wearing the order's insignia.

Carl Linnaeus felt Uppsala was too noisy and unhealthy, so he bought two farms in 1758: Hammarby and Savja.

Carl Linnaeus spent the summers with his family at Hammarby; initially it only had a small one-storey house, but in 1762 a new, larger main building was added.

In Hammarby, Carl Linnaeus made a garden where he could grow plants that could not be grown in the Botanical Garden in Uppsala.

Carl Linnaeus began constructing a museum on a hill behind Hammarby in 1766, where he moved his library and collection of plants.

Carl Linnaeus inscribed this personal motto in books that were given to him by friends.

Carl Linnaeus's reputation had spread over the world, and he corresponded with many different people.

Carl Linnaeus corresponded with Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, "the Linnaeus of the Austrian Empire", who was a doctor and a botanist in Idrija, Duchy of Carniola.

Carl Linnaeus greatly respected Scopoli and showed great interest in his work.

Carl Linnaeus named a solanaceous genus, Scopolia, the source of scopolamine, after him, but because of the great distance between them, they never met.

Carl Linnaeus was relieved of his duties in the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in 1763, but continued his work there as usual for more than ten years after.

Carl Linnaeus had had a disease called the Uppsala fever in 1764, but survived due to the care of Rosen.

Carl Linnaeus developed sciatica in 1773, and the next year, he had a stroke which partially paralysed him.

Carl Linnaeus had a second stroke in 1776, losing the use of his right side and leaving him bereft of his memory; while still able to admire his own writings, he could not recognise himself as their author.

Joseph Banks, an eminent botanist, wished to purchase the collection, but his son Carl Linnaeus refused the offer and instead moved the collection to Uppsala.

In 1783 Carl Linnaeus died and Sara inherited the collection, having outlived both her husband and son.

Carl Linnaeus tried to sell it to Banks, but he was no longer interested; instead an acquaintance of his agreed to buy the collection.

Thanks to these students, the Linnaean system of taxonomy spread through the world without Carl Linnaeus ever having to travel outside Sweden after his return from Holland.

Carl Linnaeus boarded a Swedish East India Company ship headed for China.

Tarnstrom's widow blamed Carl Linnaeus for making her children fatherless, causing Carl Linnaeus to prefer sending out younger, unmarried students after Tarnstrom.

Carl Linnaeus was overjoyed when Kalm returned, bringing back with him many pressed flowers and seeds.

Carl Linnaeus was very fond of him, promising Solander his eldest daughter's hand in marriage.

Carl Linnaeus stayed in South Africa for three years, then travelled to Japan.

Carl Linnaeus did manage to persuade some of the translators to bring him different plants, and he found plants in the gardens of Dejima.

Carl Linnaeus returned to Sweden in 1779, one year after Linnaeus's death.

People from all over the world sent their specimens to Carl Linnaeus to be included.

Carl Linnaeus felt his work was reflecting the harmony of nature and he said in 1754 "the earth is then nothing else but a museum of the all-wise creator's masterpieces, divided into three chambers".

Carl Linnaeus had turned his own estate into a microcosm of that 'world museum'.

Carl Linnaeus tried to rescue them from the neglect they had suffered during his father's later years, and added further specimens.

Carl Linnaeus's groupings were based upon shared physical characteristics, and not based upon differences.

Nevertheless, Carl Linnaeus is credited with establishing the idea of a hierarchical structure of classification which is based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships.

Carl Linnaeus pointed out both species basically have the same anatomy; except for speech, he found no other differences.

Carl Linnaeus believed that man biologically belongs to the animal kingdom and had to be included in it.

Carl Linnaeus added a second species to the genus Homo in based on a figure and description by Jacobus Bontius from a 1658 publication: Homo troglodytes and published a third in 1771: Homo lar.

Swedish historian Gunnar Broberg states that the new human species Carl Linnaeus described were actually simians or native people clad in skins to frighten colonial settlers, whose appearance had been exaggerated in accounts to Carl Linnaeus.

For Homo troglodytes Carl Linnaeus asked the Swedish East India Company to search for one, but they did not find any signs of its existence.

Additionally, Carl Linnaeus created a wastebasket taxon "monstrosus" for "wild and monstrous humans, unknown groups, and more or less abnormal people".

In 1959, W T Stearn designated Linnaeus to be the lectotype of H sapiens.

Carl Linnaeus's applied science was inspired not only by the instrumental utilitarianism general to the early Enlightenment, but by his adherence to the older economic doctrine of Cameralism.

Carl Linnaeus supported tariffs, levies, export bounties, quotas, embargoes, navigation acts, subsidised investment capital, ceilings on wages, cash grants, state-licensed producer monopolies, and cartels.

Carl Linnaeus has appeared on numerous Swedish postage stamps and banknotes.