Celebrating the ‘Prince of Botanists’

THE MOST frequently mentioned name in the history of science is that of the botanist Carl Linné.

Whenever the Latin name of a plant or an animal appears, the name of the person who first described it is also given. Linné’s naming system has proved to be an extraordinarily useful scientific invention. Most of the plants and animals, known in his day, were described by him and the Latin name, Carolus Linnaeus, has become iconic.

There were no surnames in Sweden in Carl’s time, a boy’s second name would be that of his father. When entering a university, however, a student invented a surname. Carl’s father called himself ‘Linné’ after a fine linden tree on the family farm. When Carl became famous later in life, he adopted the aristocratic ‘von Linné’, the name which appears beside his image on the 100 Kroner banknote. Ironically for a man famous for naming, the three versions of his own name lead to confusion; the plinth of his bronze statue in Lund is inscribed ‘Carl Linnaeus’, a mixture of the Swedish and Latin versions. It was he who christened our own species ‘Homo sapiens’, a brave decision; classifying humans as animals was highly controversial in those days.