Linnaeus, Carolus, originally Carl von Linn� 1707-78
Swedish naturalist and physician

Born in R�shult, he studied botany at Uppsala University, where he was appointed lecturer in 1730. He explored Swedish Lapland (1732), publishing the results in Flora Lapponica (1737), then travelled in Sweden and went to Holland to study medicine (1735). In Holland he published his system of botanical nomenclature in Systema Naturae (1735), followed by Fundamenta Botanica (1736), Genera Plantarum (1737) and Critica Botanica (1737), in which he used his so-called 'sexual system' of classification based on the number of flower parts, for long the dominant system. His major contribution was the introduction of binomial nomenclature of generic and specific names for animals and plants, which permitted the hierarchical organization later known as systematics. He returned to Sweden in 1738 and practised as a physician in Stockholm, and in 1741 became Professor of Medicine and Botany at Uppsala. In 1749 he introduced binomial nomenclature, giving each plant a Latin generic name with a specific adjective. His other important publications included Flora Suecica and Fauna Suecica (1745), Philosophia Botanica (1750), and Species Plantarum (1753). His manuscripts and collections are kept at the Linnaean Society in London, founded in his honour in 1788. The founder of modern scientific nomenclature for plants and animals, in his time he had a uniquely influential position in natural history.

Bibliography: Wilfred Blunt, The Compleat Naturalist: A Life of Linnaeus (1971)