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UPPSALA UNIVERSITY:
Dept of systematic biology
Linnaeus’ Life and Sciences 7,5 p
Web course autumn 2008
NOT ONLY LINNAEUS
who influenced
2009-01-12
Birgitta Hahn
Supervisor: Mariette Manktelow
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NOT ONLY LINNAEUS
Who influenced
Reading about Linnaeus life and his classification of plants in the eighteenth century
makes me curious.
While still a young boy Linnaeus read many books on botany that might have inspired
him and his own scientific work. Who influenced him to his sexual classification?
What characteristics of style during the seventeenth and eighteenth century were
prevalent?
In this essay, I will start with a brief review of the history of the most influential
classifiers of flowering plants from Antiques to 1700th century in Western world.1
Then I will present some later naturalists more closely and see how they might have
influenced Linnaeus.
Aristotle’s pupil THEOPHRASTUS (372-287 BC) was called the father of Botany by
Linnaeus.2 He was the first one who made attempts to develop basic theoretical
concepts about plants. He discussed for instance the principles of plant morphology
and classification and he established a descriptive terminology. From this he arranged
the 400 plants known to him into four groups: trees, bushes, shrubs and herbals.
These groups had subdivisions. His classifying system was still used by naturalists in
the seventeenth century!
In the Roman Empire the approach to botany made up by Theophrastus got lost
and the interest for plants was limited to how to use them medically.3 In the army of
Nero there was a physician DIOSCORIDES (40-90 AC). In campaigns he saw much
illness and he collected and identified about 500 medical species. In the book Matera
Medica he described these very closely, origin, medical use and how to prepare
medicals out of them. His principle of division was their medical property and he
presented them in alphabetic order. For 1500 years these descriptions by Dioscorides
were the authority and base for medical career.
During the Middle Age, monasteries kept the knowledge of cultivated and medical
plants.
In the Age of Renaissance, the interest for the Antique woke up and the principles
of Theophrastus were rediscovered and gradually his theoretical thoughts influenced
botany.4 Universities were opened and later in the 1600th century Botanical Gardens.
The main purpose of these gardens was for medical studies. The exploration of parts
1
Botany On Line sept. 2008. http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e01/01a.htm
2
Morton A.G.1981. History of Botanical Science.Acad. Press Inc.(London) Ltd. p 43
3
ibid. p 82-83
4
ibid. p 121
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of the New World brought a large number of new plants into the gardens. Luca Ghini
(1490-155) the founder of the Pisa Garden was the first to use a plant press and a
herbarium. Around this time, botany became a distinguished subject at the university.
The invention of the printing press in 1446 made the circulation of information
easier. Many herbal books – often very lavishly illustrated - got printed by naturalists
Later they were shown honour when names were given to plant genera, for instance
Brunfelsia (Otto Brunfels 1488-1534 CH), Fuchsia (Leonarth Fuchs 1501-1566 D)
Dalechampsia (Jaque Dalechamp 1513-1588 F), Gesneria (Conrad Gesner 1516-1565
CH) etc. Linnaeus called these men the Herbalists in Fundamenta Botanica 1746
From the 1600th century A. Caesalpino and C. Bauhin have to be mentioned:
CAESALPINO (1519–1603) an Italian botanist, was a pupil to Ghini and became
supervisor of the Botanical Garden at Pisa University after him. He was well
acquainted with Greek philosophy and science and expressed acknowledgements to
Theophrastus as the inspirer of his own theoretical thoughts. In his main work "De
plantis" (Of Plants) in 1583 Caesalpino present a classifying system based on the
morphology of seeds and fruits instead of medical use and alphabetic order. He
thought colour, scent and taste to be of no importance and recommended to pay no
attention to them. However, he could not escape from the division made by
Theophrastus. Linnaeus wrote about Caesalpino that he was the first real classifier
and the first Fructist as he used characters of fructifications as basis.
5
BAUHIN (1560–1624) was a Swiss botanist who described over 6000 plants in
Pinax theatri botanici" (The Survey of Plants)" 1623, a huge work in which he
collected all synonymous plant names from antiquity to his own time6. Linnaeus
mentioned him as a synonym specialist in Fundamenta Botanica §39. When classifying
plants Bauhin like Caesalpino still used the traditional groups of Theophrastus. Every
specie got a name and he introduced many names of genera that later were adopted
by Linnaeus. In Bauhin´s nomenclature there are as few words as possible; in many
case a single word was sufficient as a description- a diagnostic word rather than a
name. That gave an appearance of a two-part name7.
J. JUNGIUS (1587-1657) was a philosopher and mathematician born in Lübeck,
studied medicine in Padua and later working in Hamburg. For Botany, I can see three
notable ideas.8 First, he expected that conclusions should be drawn from experiments.
5
Nynäs C. 2007. Carl von Linné. Om Botanikens grunder. Ett 1700-talsmanuskript sammanställt av Lars
Bergqvist. Atlantis. Stockholm. Fundamenta Botanica § 28,54
6
http://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit-e/b07/b07cont.html. Jan 2nd 2009
7
The History of Taxonomy 1583-1690. http://www.bihrmann.com/caudiciforms/DIV/hist1.asp. Oct. 2008
8
Botany On Line oct. 2008. http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e01/01e.htm#jungius
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Second, he pointed out that all parts of plants, which were of the same nature should
bear the same names even if they might have different shapes. For example: a leaf
could be round, lobed etc and still it is a leaf. The whole terminology bases on this
principle. He discussed leaves, leafstalk and their attachments, flowers, fruits and
seeds, which were defined by their topological interrelations within the plant body.
Third, he found it to be logically correct that exactly defined terms, just like numbers,
had to be reliable and unalterable value. Jungius refined and extended the concept of
plant morphology derived from Theophrastus and Caesalpino. As he was not a
botanist he did not create an own classification system, but he criticised existing views
and proposed a comprehensive terminology to describe the forms of all parts of the
plant. He also had a real insight into the grouping of plants according to the
morphology of their flowers and he gave name to the groups Compositae, Labiatae
and Leguminosae! He rejected Theophrastus categories of trees, bushes, shrubs and
herbs. Jungius ideas was published in two works: Isagoge Phytoscopia (“A guide to
examining plants)” and Doxosopiae Physicae Minores “(Brief investigations of plants)”.
These were edited and published by two former students after his dead in 1679 and
1662 respectively but manuscript copies circulated earlier. Linnaeus referred to
Isagoge in his works, i.e. Fundamenta Botanica 1748. Goethe said that if the ideas of
Jungius were accepted and used sooner, the advantage of human knowledge might
have been hastened by a century9.
J. RAY (RAJUS)10 (1627 - 1705) from England was a naturalist, who as early as
1660 read Jungius and accepted his morphological system and terminology almost
entirely. Ray made up rules to be observed in classification:
1. Names should not be changed to avoid confusion and errors.
2. Characteristics have to be exactly and distinctively defined which means that
those basing on relative relations like heights are not to be used.
3. The characteristics should easily be detected by everybody.
4. Groups accepted by almost all botanists have to remain.
5. It has to be taken care, that related plants should be united; unnatural ones
and those that are different should not be united.
6. The number of characteristics to make a reliable classification must not increase
without necessity, only as many as necessary shall be used.
Based on these rules, he tried to make wider relationships (families, genera). Like
Caesalpino Ray argued that it was not reliable to use only one or two characters as
9
Guthrie D. 1959. Joachim Junge (1587-1657) A Forgotten Genius 23,. Nature 183:, 1435-36
10
Morton A.J. pp 195
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basis in classifying. Linnaeus often mentioned Ray and Jungius in his works, so these
men ought to be well known for him. Ray also made experiments on seed germination
and from these he drew the conclusion that seed plants could be divided in
Dicotyledones and Monocotyledones. This division was soon generally accepted.
Illogical did Ray still adhered to the division between of wooden and herbaceous
plants.
When Linnaeus was 19 years old and studied in Växjö, Dr Rothman made an essay
about the sexuality of plants known to him11. That text must have impressed much
upon Linnaeus. The author was S. VAILLANT (1669-1722) from France and his essay
”Discours sur la structure des fleurs” (About structures of Herbaceous Plants)
was
from a speech he held in 1717 in which he shocked his contemporaries by he
comparing stamen to penis of animals. Vaillant referred to the German R.J.
CAMERARIUS (1665-1722), who in dioecious plants had found that the removal of
stamens from male plants either greatly reduced or eliminated fertility12 and that
female plants grown with no male plants anywhere near produced fruits without
embryos. In his field experiments species of Morus and Mercurialis were among those
plants he used. He assumed that in cases when stamens and pistils are not close to
each other, pollen must transfer to pistils by some means. While Vaillant compared
pistils and stamens to sexual organs, Linnaeus, 22 years old compared them to
women and men in his Praeludia Sponsaliorum Plantarum (1929). In this text, he
referred to Vaillant but not to Camerarius. However, he described the experiment with
removal of testicolus in § XXVI and he attached an illustration of Mercurialis. In a later
work, Sponsalia Plantarum (1746)14, Linnaeus mentions the name of Camerarius and
even others who had contributed to the knowledge about sex among plants. According
to Th. Fries15, Linnaeus was criticised in his way of standing out as being the only
originator of that knowledge and by mentioning these persons the accusations could
end. This resembles Linnaeus behaviour not giving acknowledgements to the
illustrator Ehret in his Systema Naturae.14 (It is interesting to note that on the
11
Frängsmyr T., Ed.1983. Linnaeus: The man and his work. Berkeley &Los Angeles, CA, Univ. of California
Press. G. Eriksson. Linnaeus the Botanist. pp 6312
Zarsky V.,Tupy J. 1995.A Missed Anniversary: 300 Years after Jakob Camerarius ”De sexu plantarum
epistola”. Sex Plant Reproduction 8:375-376
14
Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademin. Ed. 1908. Almqvist och Wiksell Boktryckeri AB. Uppsala Linnaeus
C.v. Skrifter IV. Valda smärre skrifter af botaniskt innehåll 1.: Praeludia Sponsaliorum and Sponsalia
Plantarum. Uppsala 1729 resp. 1746.
15
14
ibid. Fries Th. In Noter till Sponsalia Plantarum p 47
Blunt W. 2004 The Compleat Naturalist-A Life of Linnaeus. Frances Lincoln Limited, London. p106
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Swedish one hundred-crown bill of today there is a figure of Mercurialis taken from
Sponsalia Plantarum)
In Sweden by the time of Linnaeus there was a common pedagogical principle of
the importance to order and classify. The book Orbis Sensualium Pictus written by J.A.
Comenius (1592-1670) spread this principle. The English philosopher F. Bacon (15611626), the profounder of experimental science, also demanded system and order. We
can see the impact on the architecture of the botanical gardens and in the outlook of
the popular cabinets of naturalia from that time. Linnaeus was enthusiastic in
ordering. He ordered everything, everything in his seeking for the right method to get
to know all created plant species. Linnaeus cited Bacon in the preface of Fundamenta
Botanica 1748.
In this essay I have tried to show that Linnaeus was not the only one on the arena.
The progress from Theophrastus via Caesalpino to Jungius and Ray in their thoughts
of a distinct terminology in order to classify in a proper way is stressed. Linnaeus
fulfilled these thoughts. Bauhin facilitated Linnaeus work in giving him the synonyms
and maybe inspired him giving shorter names to the plants. Dioscorides work about
medical plants led to botanical gardens that primarily were used for medical studies,
which Linnaeus went into.
As long as there was a limited number of known plants the dividing of plants
according to Theophrastus was enough, but with increasing number of plants the
demand of a good classifying system grew. Caesalpino made a system based upon the
fructification. Ray used the morphology of flowers and his division according to
cotyledons became a basic feature of the classification of flowering plants. There were
also others, not mentioned here, who made their systems. Valliant’s essay about
sexual organs in the flowers together with Jungius suggestion to use numbers as
unalterable values could well have inspired Linnaeus to use the numbers of stamens
and pistils in his system presented in Systema Naturae.
It is not easy to directly see who influenced Linnaeus by reading i.e. Fundamenta
Botanica. His way of expressing his ideas in aphorisms hinders to see the connection
between his own and his predecessors’ thoughts. In §31 he wrote: (my own
translation)
“The sexualists, like me, divide on the basis of sex. d) Sexualists have made their
system after sexuality or stamens and pistils. When Linnaeus started to examine
herbals he found sexuality to be absolutely right; and that no method have more
Genera beneath. Linnaei method can be seen in Syst. Nat Gen. Plant. Flora Svec. etc.”
There is no explanation why he thought it was the absolutely right method. He really
was a man with great self-confidence.