Carl Linnaeus system of nature. Linnaean classification of plants and animals

Linnaeus is the most famous Swedish natural scientist. In Sweden, he is also valued as a traveler who opened their own country for the Swedes, studied the peculiarities of the Swedish provinces and saw "how one province can help another." The value for the Swedes is not so much Linnaeus's work on the flora and fauna of Sweden, as his descriptions of his own travels; these diary entries, filled with specifics, rich in contrasts, set out in clear language, are still being republished and read. Linnaeus is one of those figures of science and culture with whom the final formation of the literary Swedish language in its modern form is associated.

Karl was the firstborn in the family (later Nils Ingemarsson and Christina had four more children - three girls and a boy).

In 1709, the family moved to Stenbruchult, located a couple of kilometers from Roshult. There, Niels Linneus planted a small garden near his house, which he tended with love; here he grew vegetables, fruits and various flowers, while he knew all their names. From early childhood, Karl also showed interest in plants, by the age of eight he knew the names of many plants that were found in the vicinity of Stenbruchult; in addition, he was given a small area in the garden for his own little garden.

In 1716-1727, Karl Linnaeus studied in the city of Växjö: first at the lower grammar school (1716-1724), then at the gymnasium (1724-1727). Since Växjö was about fifty kilometers from Stenbruchult, Karl was at home only during the holidays. His parents wanted him to study as a pastor and in the future, as the eldest son, take the place of his father, but Karl studied very poorly, especially in the basic subjects - theology and ancient languages. He was only interested in botany and mathematics; often he even skipped classes, instead of going to school, going to nature to study plants.

Dr. Johan Stensson Rotman (1684-1763), a district doctor who taught logic and medicine at Linnaeus's school, persuaded Nils Linneus to send his son to study as a doctor and began to study medicine, physiology and botany with Karl individually. The concern of the parents about the fate of Karl was connected, in particular, with the fact that it was very difficult to find a job for a doctor in Sweden at that time, at the same time there were no problems with working for a priest.

Studying in Lund and Uppsala

At Uppsala University, Linnaeus met his peer, student Peter Artedi (1705-1735), with whom they began work on a critical revision of the natural history classifications that existed at that time. Linnaeus mainly dealt with plants in general, Artedi with fishes, amphibians and umbelliferous plants. It should be noted that the level of teaching at both universities was not very high, and most of the time students were engaged in self-education.

Manuscript of Linnaeus's work (December 1729)

In 1729, Linnaeus met Olof Celsius (1670-1756), a professor of theology who was an enthusiastic botanist. This meeting turned out to be very important for Linnaeus: he soon settled in the house of Celsius and gained access to his extensive library. In the same year, Linnaeus wrote a short work "Introduction to the Sexual Life of Plants" (lat. Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum ), which outlined the main ideas of his future classification of plants based on sexual characteristics. This work aroused great interest in Uppsala academic circles.

From 1730, Linnaeus, under the guidance of Professor Olof Rudbeck Jr., began teaching as a demonstrator in the university's botanical garden. Linnaeus's lectures were a great success. In the same year, he moved to the professor's house and began to serve as a home teacher in his family. Linnaeus, however, did not live in the Rudbeck house for too long, the reason for which was an unsettled relationship with the professor's wife.

It is known about the educational excursions that Linnaeus conducted during these years in the vicinity of Uppsala.

With another professor of medicine, Lars Ruberg, Linnaeus also developed a good relationship. Ruberg was a follower of the philosophy of the Cynics, he seemed a strange person, dressed badly, but he was a talented scientist and owner of a large library. Linnaeus admired him and was an active follower of the new mechanistic physiology, which was based on the fact that the entire diversity of the world has a single device and can be reduced to a relatively small number of rational laws, just as physics is reduced to Newton's laws. The main postulate of this doctrine, "man is a machine" (lat. homo machina est), in relation to medicine, as presented by Ruberg, looked like this: “The heart is a pump, the lungs are a bellows, the stomach is a trough.” It is known that Linnaeus was an adherent of another thesis - “man is an animal” (lat. homo animal est). In general, such a mechanistic approach to natural phenomena contributed to the drawing of many parallels both between different areas of natural science, and between nature and socio-cultural phenomena. It was on such views that the plans of Linnaeus and his friend Peter Artedi to reform the entire science of nature were based - their main idea was to create a single ordered system of knowledge that would be easy to review.

Linnaeus in "Lapland" (traditional Sami) costume (1737). Painting by Dutch artist Martin Hoffmann ( Martin Hoffman). In one hand, Linnaeus holds a shaman's tambourine, in the other - his favorite plant, later named after him - linnaeus. The Sami costume, as well as the herbarium of the Lapland flora, together with the manuscript of the Flora of Lapland, Linnaeus brought to Holland

After receiving funds from the Royal Scientific Society of Uppsala, on May 12, 1732, Linnaeus traveled to Lapland and Finland. During his travels, Linnaeus researched and collected plants, animals and minerals, as well as a variety of information about the culture and lifestyle of the local population, including the Sami (Lapps). The idea of this journey largely belonged to Professor Olof Rudbek Jr., who traveled precisely in Lapland in 1695 (this trip of Rudbek can be called the first scientific expedition in the history of Sweden), and later, based on the materials collected in Lapland, he wrote illustrated a book about birds, which he showed to Linnaeus. Back to Uppsala, Linnaeus returned in the autumn, October 10, with collections and records. In the same year it was published Florula lapponica("Short Flora of Lapland"), in which the so-called "plant reproductive system" of 24 classes, based on the structure of stamens and pistils, appears for the first time in print.

The universities in Sweden during this period did not issue doctoral degrees in medicine, and Linnaeus, not having a doctoral degree, could no longer teach in Uppsala.

In 1733, Linnaeus was actively engaged in mineralogy and wrote a textbook on this subject. Around Christmas 1733, he moved to Falun, where he began teaching assay art and mineralogy.

In 1734, Linnaeus made a botanical journey to the province of Dalarna.

Dutch period

On June 23, 1735, Linnaeus received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Harderwijk, having defended his dissertation “The New Hypothesis of Intermittent Fever” (on the causes of malaria) prepared at home. From Harderwijk, Linnaeus went to Leiden, where he published a short essay Systema naturae(“The System of Nature”), which opened the way for him to the circle of learned doctors, naturalists and collectors of Holland, who turned around the European-famous professor at Leiden University Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738). Jan Gronovius (1686-1762), doctor of medicine and botanist from Leiden, helped Linnaeus with the publication of The System of Nature: he was so delighted with this work that he expressed a desire to print it at his own expense. Access to Boerhaave was very difficult, however, after the publication of The System of Nature, he himself invited Linnaeus to himself, and soon it was Boerhaave who persuaded Linnaeus not to leave for his homeland and stay for some time in Holland.

In August 1735, under the patronage of friends, Linnaeus received the position of keeper of the collections and the botanical garden, George Clifford (1685-1760), mayor of Amsterdam, banker, one of the directors of the Dutch East India Company and an enthusiastic amateur botanist. The garden was located on the estate of Gartekamp near the city of Haarlem; Linnaeus was engaged in the description and classification of a large collection of live exotic plants delivered to Holland by the company's ships from all over the world.

Linnaeus' close friend Peter Artedy also moved to Holland; he worked in Amsterdam, putting in order the collections of Albert Seba (1665-1736), traveler, zoologist and pharmacist. Unfortunately, on September 27, 1735, Artedi drowned in a canal, having stumbled while returning home at night. By this time, Artedi had finished his general work on ichthyology, and had also identified all the fish from the Seb collection and made a description of them. Linnaeus and Artedi bequeathed their manuscripts to each other, however, for the issuance of Artedi's manuscripts, the owner of the apartment in which he lived demanded a large ransom, which was paid by Linnaeus thanks to the assistance of George Clifford. Linnaeus later prepared his friend's manuscript for printing and published it in 1738 under the title Ichthyologia. In addition, Linnaeus used Artedi's proposals for the classification of fish and umbrella plants in his works.

In the summer of 1736, Linnaeus made a trip to England, where he lived for several months; he met famous botanists of that time, including Hans Sloan (1660-1753) and Johan Jacob Dillenius (1687-1747).

Carl Linnaeus
Genera plantarum, chapter Ratio operas. § eleven.

Three years spent by Linnaeus in Holland is one of the most fruitful periods of his scientific biography. During this time, his main works were published: the first edition Systema naturae("The system of nature", 1736), Bibliotheca Botanica("Botanical Library", 1736), Musa Cliffortiana("Clifford's Banana", 1736), Fundamenta Botanica(“Fundamentals of Botany”, “Fundamentals of Botany”, 1736), Hortus Cliffortianus("Clifford's Garden", 1737), Flora Lapponica("Flora of Lapland", 1737), Genera plantarum("Plant genera", 1737), Critica botanica (1737), Classes plantarum("Classes of Plants", 1738). Some of these books came out with wonderful illustrations by the artist George Ehret (1708-1770).

Returning to his homeland, Linnaeus never again traveled outside it, but three years spent abroad was enough for his name to become world famous very soon. This was facilitated by his numerous works published in Holland (since it quickly became clear that in a certain sense they laid the foundation for biology as a full-fledged science), and the fact that he personally met many authoritative botanists of that time (despite the fact that he could not was called a secular person and he was bad at foreign languages). As Linnaeus later described this period of his life, during this time he "wrote more, discovered more and made more major reforms in botany than anyone else before him in his entire life."

Cybele (Mother Earth) and Linnaeus in the form of a young Apollo, lifting the veil of ignorance with his right hand, carrying a torch in his left, the torch of knowledge, and trampling the dragon of lies with his left foot. Hortus Cliffortianus(1737), frontispiece detail. Artwork by Jan Vandelaar

Works published by Linnaeus in Holland

The publication of such a large number of works also became possible because Linnaeus often did not follow the process of publishing his works; on his behalf, his friends did this.

Linnaeus family

In 1738, after Linnaeus returned to his homeland, he and Sarah officially became engaged, and in September 1739, their wedding took place in the Moreus family farm.

Their first child (later known as Carl Linnaeus Jr.) was born in 1741. They had seven children in total (two boys and five girls), of whom two (a boy and a girl) died in infancy.

A genus of flowering South African perennials from the Iris family ( Iridaceae) was named by Linnaeus Moraea(Morea) - in honor of the wife and her father.

Genealogical chart of the Linnaean family

Ingemar Bengtsson
1633-1693

Ingrid Ingemarsdotter
1641-1717

Samuel Brodersonius
1656-1707

Maria (Marna) Jörgensdotter-Schee
1664-1703

Johan Moræus
~1640-1677

Barbro Svedberg
1649- ?

Hans Israelsson Stjarna
1656-1732

Sara Danielsdotter
1667-1741

Niels Ingemarsson Linneus
Nicolaus (Nils) Ingemarsson Linnaeus
1674-1748

Christina Brodersonia
Christina Brodersonia
1688-1733

Johan Hansson Moreus
Johan Hansson Moraeus
1672-1742

Elizabeth Hansdotter
Elisabet Hansdotter Stjarna
1691-1769

Carl Linnaeus
Carl (Carolus) Linnaeus
Carl von Linne
1707-1778

Sarah Lisa Morea
Sara Elisabeth (Elisabeth, Lisa) Moraea (Moræa)
1716-1806

Carl von Linne d.y. (Carl Linnaeus Jr. , 1741-1783)
Elisabeth Christina, 1743-1782
Sara Magdalena, 1744-1744
Lovisa, 1749-1839
Sara Christina, 1751-1835
Johannes, 1754-1757
Sofia, 1757-1830

Linnaeus had three sisters and a brother, Samuel. It was Samuel Linnaeus (1718-1797) who succeeded Niels Ingemarsson Linnaeus, their father, as cleric of Stenbruchult. Samuel is known in Sweden as the author of a book on beekeeping.

Mature years in Stockholm and Uppsala

Returning to his homeland, Linnaeus opened a medical practice in Stockholm (1738). Having cured several ladies-in-waiting for coughs with a decoction of fresh yarrow leaves, he soon became the court physician and one of the most fashionable doctors in the capital. It is known that in his medical work, Linnaeus actively used strawberries, both for the treatment of gout, and for blood purification, improving complexion, and reducing weight. In 1739, Linnaeus, heading the naval hospital, obtained permission to open the corpses of the dead to determine the cause of death.

In addition to medical practice, Linnaeus taught in Stockholm at the mining school.

In 1739, Linnaeus took part in the formation of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (which in the early years of its existence was a private society) and became its first chairman.

In October 1741, Linnaeus took up the position of professor of medicine at Uppsala University and moved to the professorial house, located in the University Botanical Garden (now the Linnaeus Garden). The position of professor allowed him to concentrate on writing books and dissertations on natural history. Linnaeus worked at Uppsala University until the end of his life.

In 1750, Carl Linnaeus was appointed rector of Uppsala University.

The most significant publications of the 1750s:

Philosophia botanica("Philosophy of Botany", 1751) - a textbook on botany, translated into many European languages and remaining a model for other textbooks until the beginning of the 19th century.
Species plantarum("Types of Plants"). The date of publication of the work - May 1, 1753 - is taken as the starting point for botanical nomenclature.
10th edition Systema naturae("The System of Nature"). The date of publication of this edition - January 1, 1758 - is taken as the starting point for zoological nomenclature.
Amoenitates academicae("Academic leisure", 1751-1790). A ten-volume collection of dissertations written by Linnaeus for his students and partly by the students themselves. It was published in Leiden, Stockholm and Erlangen: seven volumes were published during his lifetime (from 1749 to 1769), three more volumes after his death (from 1785 to 1790). The topics of these works relate to various areas of natural science - botany, zoology, chemistry, anthropology, medicine, mineralogy, etc.

In 1758, Linnaeus acquired the estate (farm) Hammarby about ten kilometers southeast of Uppsala; a country house in Hammarby became his summer estate (the estate has been preserved, now it is part of the botanical garden "Linneevsky Hammarby" owned by Uppsala University).

In 1774, Linnaeus suffered the first stroke (a cerebral hemorrhage), as a result of which he was partially paralyzed. In the winter of 1776-1777 there was a second blow: he lost his memory, tried to leave home, wrote, confusing Latin and Greek letters. On December 30, 1777, Linnaeus became much worse, and on January 10, 1778, he died at his home in Uppsala.

As one of the prominent citizens of Uppsala, Linnaeus was buried in Uppsala Cathedral.

Apostles of Linnaeus

The Apostles of Linnaeus were his students who participated in botanical and zoological expeditions in various parts of the world, starting in the late 1740s. The plans for some of them were developed by Linnaeus himself or with his participation. From their travels, most of the "apostles" brought to their teacher or sent plant seeds, herbarium and zoological specimens. Expeditions were associated with great dangers: of the 17 disciples, who are usually ranked among the "apostles", seven died during the journey. This fate befell, among others, Christopher Tärnström (1703-1746), the very first "Apostle of Linnaeus"; after the widow of Ternström accused Linnaeus of the fact that it was his fault that her children would grow up as orphans, he began to send on expeditions only those of his students who were unmarried.

Contribution to science

Linnaeus laid the foundations of modern binominal (binary) nomenclatureby introducing the so-called nomina trivialia, which later began to be used as specific epithets in the binomial names of living organisms. The method of forming a scientific name introduced by Linnaeus for each of the species is still used (the previously used long names, consisting of a large number of words, gave a description of the species, but were not strictly formalized). The use of a two-word Latin name - the name of the genus, then the specific name - made it possible to separate nomenclature from taxonomy.

Carl Linnaeus is the author of the most successful artificial classification of plants and animals, which has become the basis for the scientific classification of living organisms. He divided the natural world into three "kingdoms": mineral, vegetable and animal, using four levels ("ranks"): classes, orders, genera and species.

He described about one and a half thousand new plant species (the total number of plant species described by him is more than ten thousand) and a large number of animal species.

Since the 18th century, along with the development of botany, phenology began to develop actively - the science of seasonal natural phenomena, the timing of their onset and the reasons that determine these timings. In Sweden, it was Linnaeus who first began to conduct scientific phenological observations (since 1748); later he organized a network of observers consisting of 18 stations, which lasted from 1750 to 1752. One of the world's first scientific works on phenology was the work of Linnaeus in 1756 Calendaria Florae; the development of nature in it is described for the most part on the example of the vegetable kingdom.

Mankind owes partly to Linnaeus for the current Celsius scale. Initially, the scale of the thermometer, invented by Linnaeus's colleague at Uppsala University, Professor Anders Celsius (1701-1744), had zero at the boiling point of water and 100 degrees at the freezing point. Linnaeus, who used thermometers to measure conditions in greenhouses and greenhouses, found this inconvenient and in 1745, after the death of Celsius, “turned over” the scale.

Linnaeus collection

Carl Linnaeus left a huge collection, which included two herbaria, a collection of shells, a collection of insects and a collection of minerals, as well as a large library. "This is the greatest collection the world has ever seen," he wrote to his wife in a letter which he bequeathed to be made public after his death.

After long family disputes and against the instructions of Carl Linnaeus, the entire collection went to his son, Carl Linnaeus Jr. collection of insects by that time had already suffered from pests and dampness). The English naturalist Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) offered to sell his collection, but he refused.

But shortly after the sudden death of Carl Linnaeus Jr. from a stroke that followed in late 1783, his mother (Carlus Linnaeus's widow) wrote to Banks that she was ready to sell him the collection. He did not buy it himself, but convinced the young English naturalist James Edward Smith (1759-1828) to do so. Potential buyers were also a student of Carl Linnaeus, Baron Claes Alströmer (1736-1794), the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, the English botanist John Sibthorp (1758-1796) and others, but Smith turned out to be quicker: quickly approving the inventory sent to him, he approved the deal. Scientists and students of Uppsala University demanded that the authorities do everything to leave the legacy of Linnaeus at home, but King Gustav III of Sweden was in Italy at that time, and government officials replied that they could not resolve this issue without his intervention ...

In September 1784, the collection left Stockholm on an English brig and was soon safely delivered to England. The legend according to which the Swedes sent their warship to intercept the English brig that was exporting the Linnaeus collection has no scientific basis, although it is depicted in an engraving from R. Thornton's book "A New Illustration of the Linnaeus System".

The collection received by Smith included 19 thousand herbarium sheets, more than three thousand specimens of insects, more than one and a half thousand shells, over seven hundred coral specimens, two and a half thousand specimens of minerals; the library consisted of two and a half thousand books, over three thousand letters, as well as manuscripts of Carl Linnaeus, his son and other scientists.

Linneanism

Even during his lifetime, Linnaeus gained worldwide fame, following his teachings, conventionally called Linneanism, became widespread at the end of the 18th century. And although Linnaeus's concentration in studying phenomena on the collection of material and its further classification looks excessive from the point of view of today, and the approach itself seems to be very one-sided, for their time the activities of Linnaeus and his followers became very important. The spirit of systematization that permeated this activity helped biology to become a full-fledged science in a fairly short time and, in a sense, catch up with physics, which was actively developing during the 18th century as a result of the scientific revolution.

One of the forms of Linneanism was the creation of "Linnean societies" - scientific associations of naturalists, who built their activities on the basis of the ideas of Linnaeus. Even during his lifetime, in 1874, the Linnean Society of New South Wales arose in Australia, which still exists today.

Shortly after the London Society, a similar society appeared in Paris, the "Parisian Linnean Society". Its heyday came in the first years after the French Revolution. Later, similar "Linnean societies" appeared in Australia, Belgium, Spain, Canada, the USA, Sweden and other countries. Many of these societies still exist today.

Honors

Even during his lifetime, Linnaeus was given metaphorical names emphasizing his unique significance for world science. They called him Princeps botanicorum(there are several translations into Russian - “The first among botanists”, “Prince of botanists”, “Prince of botanists”), “Northern Pliny” (in this name Linnaeus is compared with

All living beings can be classified using a hierarchical system based on the categories of genus and species.

Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish physiologist, was a professor of medicine at the University of Uppsala. He was in charge of a large botanical garden, which was needed by the university for scientific research. People sent him plants and seeds from all over the world to grow in the botanical garden. It was thanks to the intensive study of this huge collection of plants that Carl Linnaeus was able to solve the problem of systematizing all living things - today it would be called the problem taxonomies(systematics). It can be said that he came up with the categories for the Twenty Questions quiz, popular in America, in which the first thing they ask is whether an object is an animal, plant, or mineral. In the Linnaean system, indeed, everything refers either to animals, or to plants, or to inanimate nature (minerals).

To help you understand the principle of systematization, imagine that you want to classify all the houses in the world. You can start by saying that houses in Europe, for example, are more similar to each other than houses in North America, so at the first, crudest level of classification, you need to specify the continent where the building is located. At the level of each continent, one can go further by noting that houses in one country (eg France) are more similar to each other than houses in another country (eg Norway). Thus, the second level of classification will be the country. We can continue in the same way, considering successively the level of the country, the level of the city and the level of the street. The number of the house on a particular street will be the final cell where you can place the desired object. This means that each house will be fully classified if the continent, country, city, street and house number are indicated for it.

Linnaeus noticed that in a similar way it is possible to classify living beings according to their characteristics. Man, for example, is more like a squirrel than a rattlesnake, and more like a rattlesnake than a pine tree. By doing the same reasoning as in the case of houses, one can construct a classification system in which each living creature will receive its unique place.

This is exactly what the followers of Carl Linnaeus did. At the elementary level, all living beings are divided into five kingdoms- plants, animals, fungi and two kingdoms of unicellular organisms (non-nuclear and containing DNA in the nucleus). Each kingdom is further divided into types. For example, the human nervous system includes a long spinal brain, which is formed from the notochord. This puts us in the phylum chordates. In most animals that have a spinal cord, it is located inside the spine. This large group of chordates is called subtype vertebrates. The person belongs to this subtype. The presence of a backbone is a criterion by which vertebrates differ from invertebrates, that is, those that do not have a backbone (these include, for example, crabs).

The next classification category is − Class. Man is a representative of the class of mammals - warm-blooded animals with wool, viviparous and feeding their young with milk. This level distinguishes between man and animals such as reptiles and birds. The next category is detachment. We belong to the order of primates - animals with binocular vision and arms and legs adapted for grasping. Classifying humans as primates distinguishes us from other mammals, such as dogs and giraffes.

The following two classification categories are − family And genus. We belong to the hominin family and the genus Homo. However, this distinction means little to us, since the other representatives of our family and our kind no longer exist (although they existed in the past). In most animals, each genus contains several representatives. For example, a polar bear is Ursus maritimis and the grizzly bear Ursus horibilis. Both these bears belong to the same genus ( Ursus), but to different species - they do not interbreed.

When describing animals, it is customary to indicate the genus and species. Therefore, a person is classified as Homo sapiens("A reasonable man"). This does not mean that the other categories of classification are unimportant - they are simply implied when speaking of genus and species. The main contribution of Linnaeus to science is that he applied and introduced the so-called binary nomenclature, according to which each object of classification is designated by two Latin names - generic and specific.

Classifying wildlife in this way, the Linnaean system assigns to each organism its own unique place in the world of living beings. But success depends primarily on how correctly the taxonomist identifies important physical characteristics, and incorrect judgments and even mistakes are possible here - Linnaeus, for example, attributed the hippopotamus to the order of rodents! At present, systematization increasingly takes into account the genetic code of individual organisms or the history of their evolution - a family tree (this approach is called cladistics).

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Template:Picture The German botanist and physician Rudolf Camerarius (1665-1721) was the first to scientifically substantiate the presence of sexual differences in plants and developed a methodology for describing these differences. Linnaeus - one of the few scientists of the XVIII century - appreciated and developed this teaching. When creating his own classification system, Linnaeus also used the ideas of the French botanist Sebastian Vaillant (1669-1722), who, based on his research, spoke out about the fundamental role of stamens and pistils in the reproduction of plants.

History of creation

Template: Painting With the ideas of Sebastian Vaillant about the "true purpose" of the various parts of the flower, Linnaeus was apparently familiar back in Växjö, during his studies at the gymnasium: in the library of Dr. Rothman, who prepared Linnaeus for entering the university, there was a book by Vaillant. In writing, the foundations of the future sexual classification system appeared at the end of 1729, in the second year of Linnaeus's studies at Uppsala University, in a small handwritten essay Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum?! ("Introduction to the Sexual Life of Plants", "Introduction to Plant Engagements"), written in Swedish. The first part of the work was a survey of opinions on the question of the field in plants, while Linnaeus began with the authorities of antiquity, Theophrastus and Pliny the Elder, and ended with botanists who studied this issue at the beginning of the 18th century - Tournefort and Vaillant. Then Linnaeus outlined the purpose of the various parts of the flower in accordance with Vaillant's ideas - he wrote about the auxiliary role of the petals, acting as a "marriage bed", and about the fundamental role of stamens ("grooms") and pistils ("brides") in the reproduction of plants.

Linnaeus presented his manuscript as a New Year's gift to Professor Olof Celsius (1670-1756), a theologian and enthusiastic botanist. In the preface, Linnaeus wrote of "the great analogy to be found between plants and animals in the reproduction of their families in a similar manner." The work aroused great interest in the academic circles of Uppsala, it was highly appreciated by the most famous botanist of that time at Uppsala University - Professor Olof Rudbek Jr. (1660-1740). Template: Painting In 1731, the development of the sexual classification system for plants was essentially completed by Linnaeus. In 1732 in Acta Litteraria Sueciae(“Proceedings of the Uppsala Royal Scientific Society”), the first work was published in which the new system was used, - Florula Lapponica("Short Lapland Flora"): a catalog of plants collected by Linnaeus during his expedition to Lapland.

System description

A description of the sexual classification system for plants was published in the first edition of The System of Nature, published in 1735 in Leiden. The long-standing division of the plant kingdom into grasses and trees was rejected by him (in the Tournefort system, which was actively used at that time, such a division existed). Linnaeus, like Vaillant, believed that the most essential and immutable (weakly dependent on growing conditions) parts of plants are their reproductive organs. Proceeding from this, he built his classification on the basis of the number, size and location of the genital organs of plants (pistils and stamens), as well as on the features of the division of the sexes (monoecious, dioecious and polyecious).

The system consists of three parts: a key, attributes of classes, as well as a list of genera distributed by classes.

System key

The key of the system (which is essentially a tree Porphyry - a tree-like structure to illustrate the steps of a consistent deductive dichotomous division of concepts from higher to lower) from the second volume of the 12th edition of The System of Nature (1767):

Plant marriages...

… public

Accuracy	Classes XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX

Dioecious

Class XXI, XXII, XXIII

...secret

Class features

In total, Linnaeus identified 24 classes of plants. In the first 23 classes, he placed plants that have visible flowers; in the last, XXIV class, all plants that did not have flowers were placed (as the Russian botanist Ivan Martynov wrote in the presentation of the Linnaean System in 1821, the flowers are “barely visible and completely hidden” or “contained in the fruit”) - the so-called mystogamous plants. The first 23 classes were divided by Linnaeus into two parts: in classes from I to XX, plants with bisexual (hermaphroditic, monologue - that is, having one “marriage bed”) flowers were placed, that is, those that have both pistils and stamens; the following three classes included plants with unisexual (bilayer - that is, having two "marriage beds") flowers - located on the same plant (XXI), on different plants (XXII) or such plants that can have both unisexual flowers and bisexual (XXIII). Classes I to XIII were based on the number of stamens, with all stamens being separate and of equal length; the next two classes (XIV, XV) were distinguished on the basis of unequal length of stamens, the next three (XVI, XVII, XVIII) - on the basis of accretion of stamens. To class XIX, Linnaeus attributed plants in the flowers of which the filaments of the stamens remained free, and the anthers grew together; to the XX class - plants in which the filaments of the stamens have grown together with the style of the pistil.

List of classes

Class	class name	Russian translation of the title	Features of flowers, additional information	plant examples
I	Monandriae	single stamens monogamy	Flowers with one stamen	Kanna, Turmeric
II	Diandriae	two stamens two-wild	Flowers with two stamens Three orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Trigynia	Lilac , Olive
III	Triandriae	Three stamens trimuzhie	Flowers with three stamens Three orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Trigynia	Bulrush, Wheat
IV	tetrandriae	four-stalk quadrupeds	Flowers with four stamens	Plantain, Holly
V	Pentandriae	Five-starred five-wisdom	Flowers with five stamens Seven orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Trigynia, Tetragynia, Pentagynia, Decagynia, Polygynia	Buckthorn , Beetroot , Umbelliferae
VI	Hexandriae	six-stalk six husbands	Flowers with six stamens Six orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Trigynia, Tetragynia, Hexagynia, Polygynia	Narcissus , Rice
VII	Heptandriae	Semistamens seven husbands	Flowers with seven stamens Four orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Tetragynia, Heptagynia	Sedmichnik
VIII	Octandriae	Eight-stalk octopus	Flowers with eight stamens Four orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Trigynia, Tetragynia	Vaccinium, Buckwheat
IX	Enneandriae	Nine-stalk Nine Wisdom	Flowers with nine stamens Three orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Hexagynia	Laurel, Rhubarb
X	Decandriae	ten stamens tenwisdom	Flowers with ten stamens Six orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Trigynia, Tetragynia, Pentagynia, Decagynia	Saxifrage, Malpighia
XI	Dodecandriae	twelve stalk twelve husbands	Flowers with 12 to 19 stamens Seven orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Trigynia, Tetragynia, Pentagynia, Hexagynia, Dodecagynia	Hoof, Euphorbia
XII	Icosandriae	twenty stalk twenty-wisdom	The number of stamens is 20 or more, while they are attached to the calyx Five orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Trigynia, Pentagynia, Polygynia	Plum , Rosehip
XIII	Poliandriae	Polystamens Polyandry	Stamens numerous, attached to receptacle Seven orders (according to the number of pistils): Monogynia, Digynia, Trigynia, Tetragynia, Pentagynia, Hexagynia, Polygynia	Buttercup, Poppy
XIV	Didynamiae	Double-strength double strength	Two stamens are longer than the rest Three orders: Gymnospermia, Angiospermia, Polypetala	Norichaceae, Lamiaceae
XV	Tetradynamiae	four-strong Four-strength	Four stamens are longer than the rest Two orders: Siliculosa, Siliquosa	Cabbage
XVI	Monodelphiae	odnofraternal monofraternity	Stamens fused into one bundle (tube) Three orders: Pentandria, Decandria, Polyandria	Camellia, Passion flower
XVII	diadelphiae	Bifraternal Fraternity	Stamens fused into two bundles Three orders: Hexandria, Octandria, Decandria	Dymyanka , Beans
XVIII	polyadelphiae	polyfraternal polyfraternity	The stamens are fused into several bundles Three orders: Pentandria, Icosandria, Polyandria	St. John's wort, Citrus
XIX	Syngenesiae	Anther anthers Affinity	The anthers have grown together, and the filaments of the stamens have remained free Five orders: Polygamia aequalis, Polygamia superflua, Polygamia frustranea, Polygamia necessaria, Monogamia	Asteraceae
XX	Gynandriae	Anther pistillate Interstitial stamen wifey	The filaments of stamens are fused with the style of the pistil Seven orders: Diandria, Triandria, Tetrandia, Pentandria, Hexandria, Decandria, Polyandria	Kirkazon, Orchid
XXI	Monoeciae	monoecious monodomy	Flowers are unisexual, male and female flowers are on the same plant Nine orders: Monandria, Triandria, Tetrandia, Pentandria, Hexandria, Polyandria, Monadelphia, Polyadelphia, Syngenesia	Birch , Oak
XXII	Dioeciae	Dioecious dual house	The flowers are unisexual, with male and female flowers on different plants. 13 orders: Didandria, Triandria, Tetrandia, Pentandria, Hexandria, Octandria, Enneandria, Decandria, Icosandria, Polyandria, Monadelphia, Syngenesia, Gynandria	Willow, Poplar
XXIII	polygamiae	polygamous Polygamy	The plant has both bisexual and unisexual flowers. Three orders: Monoecia, Dioecia, Trioecia	Persimmon , Ash
XXIV	Cryptogamae	Secret marriages secret marriage	No flowers Six orders: Plantae, Filices, Musci, Algae, Fungi, Lithophyta	Algae , Higher spore plants , Mushrooms

System development

Over time, Linnaeus's system changed - Linnaeus himself made small changes to it during his life, other changes were made to the system after his death. So, in the first version of the system (1735) in the XXIV class there was the order Lithophyta, which included various marine organisms leading a stationary lifestyle, but this order was quickly excluded from the system.

The wording of the characteristics was refined by Linnaeus from edition to edition. The text published in the second volume of the 12th edition of the System of Nature (1767) is considered the most perfect. From edition to edition, the number of genera listed in the plant classification system also increased - in the indicated edition, the list "Genera of classes" occupied 22 pages.

System evaluation

The disadvantage of the system, which Linnaeus himself was aware of, was its artificial nature - such, however, were all other classification systems known by that time, including the Cesalpino system (based on the characteristics and structure of fruits and seeds), the Ray system (taking into account various characteristics plants, including the structure of the fruit and perianth, as well as the life form) and the Tournefort system (built on the structure of the perianth). In all these systems, including the Linnaean system, taking into account the key features for this system turned out to be insufficient in order to establish natural relationships between the systematic groups of plants. However, the key feature of the Linnaean system - the features of the genital organs of the plant - turned out to be more significant compared to the key features of previous systems, as well as more visual and convenient in practical use, and even non-professional naturalists could understand the terminology and methodology of its application. Under the conditions of the acute need in the 18th century for descriptive works on the inventory of flora objects, such a system favorably differed from the previous ones, especially in the conditions of more precise terminology and simpler (starting from the second half of the 18th century) binominal botanical nomenclature.

The reforming activity of Linnaeus was perceived ambiguously in the botanical world. As Emil Winkler wrote in his "History of Botany" (1854) about the period preceding the emergence of the system, at that time many scientists spoke of two sexes in plants, especially since after Sebastian Vaillant there was a conviction that the theory of fertilization was correct, "but so that the botanist , and, moreover, such a young man, as Linnaeus was then, dared with strict consistency to distinguish between the male and female sexes in plants and build a new system on this difference - this was something completely unheard of. The controversy around the Linnaean system continued for many years and many authoritative scientists from different countries were involved in them. The very doctrine of the sexual process in plants raised doubts; in addition, there were botanists who spoke out about the fact that the new teaching is immoral, and therefore should be discarded. Johann Sigizbek, director of the Botanical Garden in St. Petersburg, wrote in 1737 that “God would never allow such an immoral fact in the vegetable kingdom as that several husbands (stamens) have one wife (pistil). Such an unchaste system should not be presented to student youth. According to the Austrian historian of science Joseph Schultes, the most fundamental and, at the same time, the most rude enemy of Linnaeus was the German botanist and physician Friedrich Medicus (1736-1808); working on the creation of his own plant classification system, in which there were signs of both artificial (like Linnaeus) and natural systems, Medicus, according to Schultes, used every opportunity to improve Linnaeus to censure him. Linnaeus was sharply criticized by the famous Swiss botanist, physician and poet Albrecht Galler (1708-1777). Also criticizing Linnaeus, Christian Gottlieb Ludwig (1709-1773) was developing his own system, in which he tried to combine the systems of Linnaeus and Rivinus. Other botanists expressed various ideas about how Linnaeus's system should be improved; Linnaeus's students and associates, in particular, Carl Thunberg and Johann Gledich, offered their options for improvement.

In general, the new plant classification system quickly won recognition and spread throughout the world, becoming almost universally recognized in the second half of the 18th century. Compared with the classifications that were used before it, the Linnaean system represented a significant step forward; it was with its help that the chaos and uncertainty that reigned in the taxonomy of plants at the beginning of the 18th century were overcome in science. Joseph Kölreuter's research on hybridization in plants, carried out in the second half of the 18th century, seemed to finally close the question of the existence of sex in plants and the significance of various parts of the plant organism for the reproduction process, however, at the beginning of the 19th century, works criticizing the Linnaean reproductive system began to appear again. , while the very fact of the existence of sex in plants was called into question. German botanists Franz Shelfer (1778-1832) and August Henschel(1790-1856) argued that for the formation of seeds in plants, it is not pollen that is required, but various natural forces, and therefore there is no reason to talk about the similarity of the reproduction processes in plants and animals. From the fact of the existence of plants that have both flowers only with pistils, and flowers only with stamens, Schefler concluded that stamens are unnecessary for fruiting, and presented this idea as obvious. According to the Soviet botanist Evgeny Vulf, the ideas of Shelfer's work "Criticism of the doctrine of the field in plants" threw the doctrine of the field in plants back to the beginning of the 17th century. Nikolay Vavilov called their criticism frivolous, but noted that even the great Johann Wolfgang Goethe fell under their influence.

Linnaeus himself perceived his system primarily as a service one, of practical importance, intended "for diagnosis". The desire to build a natural system (a system built according to the "natural method") Linnaeus considered "the first and last thing that botany strives for", explaining this by the fact that "nature does not make leaps", and all plants "show affinity for each other » . Linnaeus singled out natural groups in his works (for example, 67 groups given in the Philosophy of Botany), but at the same time he noticed that these were only “fragments” of the natural method and they “need to be studied”. According to the historian Donneman, students and followers of Linnaeus, unfortunately, began to consider the system of classification of Linnaeus as the crown of natural science, not taking into account the opinion of the creator of this system and seeing as the main goal of their activity the knowledge of as many species as possible. As a result, the Linnaean system eventually began to serve as a brake on the development of science - and this situation was observed until the recognition by the scientific world of the natural plant classification system developed by Augustin Decandol in the 1820s and 1830s based on the systems of Bernard Jussier and Antoine Jussier.

The use of the Linnaean system continued into the first half of the 19th century, but by the middle of the 19th century it had already become a relic. In Russia, this system was used in scientific botanical literature from the second half of the 18th century until the 1830s, and in educational and popular science literature until the end of the 19th century.

The botanist Ivan Martynov, in his essay “Three Botanists”, published in 1821, wrote that in the plant kingdom “there shine like three great luminaries, three systematics -

Carl Linnaeus

(1707-1778)

Carl Linnaeus, the famous Swedish naturalist, was born in Sweden on May 13, 1707. He was of an humble family, his ancestors were simple peasants; father was a poor country priest. The next year after the birth of his son, he received a more profitable parish in Stenbroghult, the year and the whole childhood of Carl Linnaeus passed until the age of ten.

My father was a great lover of flowers and gardening; in the picturesque Stenbroghult he planted a garden, which soon became the first in the whole province. This garden and his father's studies, of course, played a significant role in the spiritual development of the future founder of scientific botany. The boy was given a special corner in the garden, several beds, where he was considered a complete master; they were called so - "Karl's garden"

When the boy was 10 years old, he was sent to an elementary school in the city of Vexie. The gifted child's schoolwork was going badly; he continued to engage in botany with enthusiasm, and the preparation of lessons was tiring for him. The father was going to take the young man from the gymnasium, but the case pushed him into contact with the local doctor Rotman. At Rotman, the classes of the “underachieving” gymnasium went better. The doctor began to gradually introduce him to medicine and even - contrary to the teachers' reviews - made him fall in love with Latin.

After graduating from high school, Karl enters Lund University, but soon moves from there to one of the most prestigious universities in Sweden - Uppsala. Linnaeus was only 23 years old when the professor of botany Oluas Celzki took him as his assistant, after which, while still a student, Karl began teaching at the university. The journey through Lapland became very important for the young scientist. Linnaeus walked almost 700 kilometers, collected significant collections, and as a result published his first book, Flora of Lapland.

In the spring of 1735, Linnaeus arrived in Holland, in Amsterdam. In the small university town of Gardquick, he passed the exam and on June 24 he defended his dissertation on a medical topic - about fever. The immediate goal of his journey was reached, but Charles remained. He remained, fortunately for himself and for science: the rich and highly cultured Holland served as the cradle for his ardent creative activity and his resounding fame.

One of his new friends, Dr. Gronov, suggested that he publish some work; then Linnaeus compiled and printed the first draft of his famous work, which laid the foundation for systematic zoology and botany in the modern sense. This was the first edition of his "Systema naturae", containing only 14 pages of a huge format, on which brief descriptions of minerals, plants and animals were grouped in the form of tables. With this edition, a series of rapid scientific successes of Linnaeus begins.

In his new works, published in 1736-1737, his main and most fruitful ideas were already contained in a more or less finished form: a system of generic and specific names, improved terminology, an artificial system of the plant kingdom.

At this time, he received a brilliant offer to become the personal physician of George Cliffort with a salary of 1000 guilders and a full allowance.

Despite the successes that surrounded Linnaeus in Holland, little by little he began to pull home. In 1738, he returns to his homeland and encounters unexpected problems. He, accustomed for three years of living abroad to universal respect, friendship and signs of attention of the most prominent and famous people, at home, in his homeland, was just a doctor without a job, without practice and without money, and no one cared about his scholarship . So Linnaeus the botanist gave way to Linnaeus the doctor, and his favorite activities were stopped for a while.

However, already in 1739, the Swedish Diet assigned him one hundred lukats of annual maintenance with the obligation to teach botany and mineralogy.

Finally, he found an opportunity to marry, and on June 26, 1739, a five-year-delayed wedding took place. Alas, as is often the case, his wife was the exact opposite of her husband. An ill-mannered, rude and quarrelsome woman, without intellectual interests, who was only interested in the financial aspects of her husband. Linnaeus had one son and several daughters; the mother loved her daughters, and they grew up under her influence as uneducated and petty girls of a bourgeois family. To her son, a gifted boy, the mother had a strange antipathy, pursued him in every possible way and tried to turn her father against him. But Linnaeus loved his son and passionately developed in him those inclinations for which he himself suffered so much in childhood.

In 1742, Linnaeus's dream came true and he became a professor of botany at his native university. The rest of his life was spent in this city almost without a break. He occupied the department for more than thirty years and left it only shortly before his death.

Now Linnaeus ceased to engage in medical practice, was engaged only in scientific research. He described all medicinal plants known at that time and studied the effect of medicines made from them.

During this time, he invented the thermometer using the Celsius temperature scale.

But the main business of his life, Linnaeus still considered the systematization of plants. The main work "The System of Plants" took 25 years, and only in 1753 did he publish his main work.

The scientist decided to systematize the entire plant world of the Earth. At the time when Liney began his career, zoology was in a period of exceptional predominance of taxonomy. The task that she then set herself was simply to get acquainted with all the breeds of animals living on the globe, without regard to their internal structure and to the connection of individual forms with each other; the subject of zoological writings of that time was a simple enumeration and description of all known animals.

Thus, zoology and botany of that time were mainly concerned with the study and description of species, but boundless confusion reigned in their recognition. The descriptions that the author gave of new animals or plants were inconsistent and inaccurate. The second main shortcoming of the then science was the lack of a more or less basic and precise classification.

These basic shortcomings of systematic zoology and botany were corrected by the genius of Linnaeus. Remaining on the same ground of the study of nature, on which his predecessors and contemporaries stood, he was a powerful reformer of science. Its merit is purely methodical. He did not discover new areas of knowledge and hitherto unknown laws of nature, but he created a new method, clear, logical. And with the help of it, he brought light and order to where chaos and confusion reigned before him, which gave a huge impetus to science, paving the way for further research in a powerful way. This was a necessary step in science, without which further progress would not have been possible.

The scientist proposed a binary nomenclature - a system of scientific naming of plants and animals. Based on the structural features, he divided all plants into 24 classes, also highlighting separate genera and species. Each name, in his opinion, should have consisted of two words - generic and specific designations.

In his work "Fundamental Botany", published in Amsterdam during his life with Cliffort and which was the result of seven years of work, the foundations of the botanical terminology that he used to describe plants are outlined.

The zoological system of Linnaeus did not play such a major role in science as the botanical one, although in some respects it stood above it, as less artificial, but it did not represent its main advantages - convenience in determining. Linnaeus had little knowledge of anatomy.

Linnaeus' work gave a huge impetus to systematic botany and zoology. The developed terminology and convenient nomenclature made it easier to cope with a huge amount of material that had previously been so difficult to understand. Soon all classes of the plant and animal kingdom were systematically studied, and the number of described species increased from hour to hour.

Linnaeus later applied his principle to the classification of all nature, in particular minerals and rocks. He also became the first scientist to classify humans and apes as the same group of animals, primates. As a result of his observations, the naturalist compiled another book - "The System of Nature". He worked on it all his life, from time to time republishing his work. In total, the scientist prepared 12 editions of this work, which gradually turned from a small book into a voluminous multi-volume publication.

The last years of Linnaeus's life were overshadowed by senility and illness. He died on January 10, 1778, at the age of seventy-one.

After his death, the chair of botany at Uppsala University was given to his son, who zealously set about continuing his father's work. But in 1783 he suddenly fell ill and died at the age of forty-two. The son was not married, and with his death, the lineage of Linnaeus in the male generation ceased.

CARL LINNEUS

Carl Linnaeus, the famous Swedish naturalist, was born in Sweden, in the village of Rozgult, on May 23, 1707. He was of an humble family, his ancestors were simple peasants; father, Nils Linneus, was a poor country priest. The year after the birth of his son, he received a more profitable parish in Stenbroghult, where Carl Linnaeus spent his entire childhood until the age of ten.

When the boy was ten years old, he was sent to an elementary school in the town of Vexiyo. The gifted child's schoolwork was going badly; he continued to engage in botany with enthusiasm, and the preparation of lessons was tiring for him. The father was about to take the young man from the gymnasium, but the case pushed him into contact with the local doctor Rotman. He was a good friend of the head of the school where Linnaeus began his studies, and from him he knew about the exceptional talents of the boy. At Rotman, the classes of the “underachieving” schoolboy went better. The doctor began to gradually introduce him to medicine and even - contrary to the teachers' reviews - made him fall in love with Latin.

After graduating from high school, Karl enters Lund University, but soon moves from there to one of the most prestigious universities in Sweden - Uppsala. Linnaeus was only 23 years old when the professor of botany Olof Celsius took him to be his assistant, after which he himself, while still a student. Carl began teaching at the university. The journey through Lapland became very important for the young scientist. Linnaeus walked almost 700 kilometers, collected significant collections, and as a result published his first book, Flora of Lapland.

In the spring of 1735, Linnaeus arrived in Holland, in Amsterdam. In the small university town of Garderwick, he passed the exam and on June 24 he defended his dissertation on a medical topic - about fever, which he wrote back in Sweden. The immediate goal of his journey was reached, but Charles remained. He remained, fortunately for himself and for science: the rich and highly cultured Holland served as the cradle for his ardent creative activity and his resounding fame.

One of his new friends, Dr. Gronov, suggested that he publish some work; then Linnaeus compiled and printed the first draft of his famous work, which laid the foundation for systematic zoology and botany in the modern sense. This was the first edition of his Systema naturae, containing only 14 huge pages for the time being, on which brief descriptions of minerals, plants and animals were grouped in the form of tables. With this edition, a series of rapid scientific successes of Linnaeus begins.

In his new works, published in 1736-1737, his main and most fruitful ideas were already contained in a more or less finished form - a system of generic and specific names, improved terminology, an artificial system of the plant kingdom.

At this time, he received a brilliant offer to become the personal physician of George Cliffort with a salary of 1000 guilders and a full allowance. Cliffort was one of the directors of the East India Company (which then prospered and filled Holland with wealth) and mayor of the city of Amsterdam. And most importantly, Cliffort was a passionate gardener, a lover of botany and the natural sciences in general. In his estate Gartekampe, near Harlem, there was a garden famous in Holland, in which, regardless of costs and tirelessly, he was engaged in the cultivation and acclimatization of foreign plants - plants of Southern Europe, Asia, Africa, America. At the garden, he had both herbariums and a rich botanical library. All this contributed to the scientific work of Linnaeus.

Despite the successes that surrounded Linnaeus in Holland, little by little he began to pull home. In 1738, he returned to his homeland and faced unexpected problems. He, accustomed for three years of living abroad to universal respect, friendship and signs of attention of the most prominent and famous people, at home, in his homeland, was just a doctor without a job, without practice and without money, and no one cared about his scholarship . So Linnaeus the botanist gave way to Linnaeus the physician, and his favorite activities were abandoned for a while.

However, already in 1739, the Swedish Diet assigned him one hundred ducats of annual maintenance with the obligation to teach botany and mineralogy. At the same time, he was given the title of "royal botanist". In the same year, he received a position as Admiralty doctor in Stockholm: this position opened up a wide scope for his medical activities.

Finally, he found an opportunity to marry, and on June 26, 1739, a five-year-delayed wedding took place. Alas, as is often the case with people of outstanding talent, his wife was the exact opposite of her husband. An ill-mannered, rude and quarrelsome woman, without intellectual interests, she valued only the material side in the brilliant activity of her husband; she was a housewife, a cook wife. In economic matters, she held power in the house and in this respect had a bad influence on her husband, developing in him a tendency to avarice. There was a lot of sadness in their relationship in the family. Linnaeus had one son and several daughters; the mother loved her daughters, and they grew up under her influence as uneducated and petty girls of a bourgeois family. To her son, a gifted boy, the mother had a strange antipathy, pursued him in every possible way and tried to turn her father against him. The latter, however, she did not succeed: Linnaeus loved his son and passionately developed in him those inclinations for which he himself suffered so much in childhood.

In a short period of his life in Stockholm, Linnaeus took part in the founding of the Stockholm Academy of Sciences. It originated as a private community of several persons, and the original number of its actual members was only six. At its first meeting, Linnaeus was appointed president by lot.

In 1742, Linnaeus's dream came true and he became a professor of botany at his native university. The botanical department in Uppsala acquired under Linnaeus an extraordinary brilliance, which she never had either before or after. The rest of his life was spent in this city almost without a break. He occupied the department for more than thirty years and left it only shortly before his death.

His financial position becomes strong; he has the good fortune to see the complete triumph of his scientific ideas, the rapid spread and universal recognition of his teachings. The name of Linnaeus was considered among the first names of that time: people like Rousseau treated him with respect. External successes and honors rained down on him from all sides. In that age - the age of enlightened absolutism and patrons - scientists were in vogue, and Linnaeus was one of those advanced minds of the last century, on which the courtesies of sovereigns rained down.

The scientist bought himself a small estate Gammarba near Uppsala, where he spent the summer in the last 15 years of his life. Foreigners who came to study under his guidance rented apartments for themselves in a nearby village.

Of course, now Linnaeus ceased to be engaged in medical practice, he was engaged only in scientific research. He described all medicinal plants known at that time and studied the effect of medicines made from them. It is interesting that these studies, which seemed to fill all his time, Linnaeus successfully combined with others. It was at this time that he invented the thermometer, using the Celsius temperature scale.

But the main business of his life, Linnaeus still considered the systematization of plants. The main work "The System of Plants" took as much as 25 years, and only in 1753 did he publish his main work.

The scientist decided to systematize the entire plant world of the Earth. At the time when Linnaeus began his work, zoology was in a period of exceptional predominance of systematics. The task that she then set herself was simply to get acquainted with all the breeds of animals living on the globe, without regard to their internal structure and to the connection of individual forms with each other; the subject of zoological writings of that time was a simple enumeration and description of all known animals.

Thus, zoology and botany of that time were mainly concerned with the study and description of species, but boundless confusion reigned in their recognition. The descriptions that the author gave of new animals or plants were usually inconsistent and inaccurate. The second main shortcoming of the then science was the lack of a more or less tolerable and accurate classification.

These basic shortcomings of systematic zoology and botany were corrected by the genius of Linnaeus. Remaining on the same ground of the study of nature, on which his predecessors and contemporaries stood, he was a powerful reformer of science. Its merit is purely methodological. He did not discover new areas of knowledge and hitherto unknown laws of nature, but he created a new method, clear, logical, and with the help of it brought light and order to where chaos and confusion reigned before him, which gave a huge impetus to science, paving the way in a powerful way for further research. This was a necessary step in science, without which further progress would not have been possible.

Despite the fact that the principle applied by him was rather artificial, it turned out to be very convenient and became generally accepted in scientific classification, retaining its significance in our time. But in order for the new nomenclature to be fruitful, it was necessary that the species that received the conditional name, at the same time, be so accurately and in detail described that they could not be confused with other species of the same genus. Linnaeus did just that: he was the first to introduce a strictly defined, precise language and a precise definition of features into science. In his work "Fundamental Botany", published in Amsterdam during his life with Cliffort and which was the result of seven years of work, the foundations of the botanical terminology that he used to describe plants are outlined.

The zoological system of Linnaeus did not play such a major role in science as the botanical one, although in some respects it was even higher than it, as less artificial, but it did not represent its main advantages - convenience in determining. Linnaeus had little knowledge of anatomy.

The works of Linnaeus gave a huge impetus to the systematic botany of zoology. The developed terminology and convenient nomenclature made it easier to cope with a huge amount of material that had previously been so difficult to understand. Soon all classes of the plant and animal kingdom were systematically studied, and the number of described species increased from hour to hour.

Later, Linnaeus applied his principle to the classification of all nature, in particular, minerals and rocks. He also became the first scientist to classify humans and apes as the same group of animals, primates. As a result of his observations, the naturalist compiled another book - "The System of Nature". He worked on it all his life, from time to time republishing his work. In total, the scientist prepared 12 editions of this work, which gradually turned from a small book into a voluminous multi-volume edition.

The last years of Linnaeus's life were overshadowed by senility and illness. He died on January 10, 1778, at the age of seventy-one.

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CARL LINNEUS (1707–1778) Carl Linnaeus, the famous Swedish naturalist, was born in Sweden, in the village of Rozgult, on May 23, 1707. He was of an humble family, his ancestors were simple peasants; father, Nils Linneus, was a poor country priest. The year after birth

From the book Evolution author Jenkins Morton

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) naturalist, creator of the system of flora and fauna Nature does not make a leap. Elegance relaxes the body. In natural science, principles must be confirmed by observations. With the help of art, nature creates

From the book The Newest Book of Facts. Volume 1. Astronomy and astrophysics. Geography and other earth sciences. Biology and medicine author Kondrashov Anatoly Pavlovich

From the book of 100 great commanders of Western Europe author Shishov Alexey Vasilievich

Why are many of the plants that Linnaeus considered Siberian not found in Siberia? The creator of the system of flora and fauna, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), being the largest specialist in the field of biology and medicine, knew very little

From the book Big Dictionary of Quotes and Popular Expressions author

From the book World History in Sayings and Quotes author Dushenko Konstantin Vasilievich

From the author's book

LINNEUS, Carl (Linn?, Carl von, 1707–1778), Swedish naturalist 529 Minerals exist, plants live and grow, animals live, grow and feel. // Mineralia sunt, vegetabilia vivunt et crescunt, animalia vivunt, crescunt et sentiunt. Attributed. ? Luppol I. K. Diderot, ses idées philosophiques. – Paris, 1936, p. 271; Babkin, 2:115. Probable