May 21, 2007. Copright, 2007, Graphic News. All rights reserved

The man who sorted out nature

London, May 21, Graphic News: This week marks the 300th birthday of the Swedish scientific pioneer Carl Linnaeus, the man most noted for deciding we should all be known as Homo sapiens, and classifying us as primates in the class of mammals.

Born in Rashult, southeast Sweden on May 23, 1707, Carl von LinnŽ -- commonly known as Linnaeus -- lived at a time when exploration and trade were bringing new specimens, particularly potential plant crops, to the attention of European scientists. Today he is revered in Sweden as ÒMr Flower PowerÓ, the man who devised the system used to this day to classify all living organisms.

Linnaeus established a hierarchical classification of the natural world, dividing it into the animal kingdom (Regnum animale), the plant kingdom (Regnum vegetabile) and the mineral kingdom (Regnum lappideum).

At the age of 24 Linnaeus set out on a 3,000 mile journey around Lapland, England, France and Holland, where in 1735 he published the first edition of his masterpiece, Systema Naturae, an 11-page inventory of the natural world. By the publication of his final 13th edition in 1770, it had grown to 3,000 pages, identifying and naming some 7,700 plants and 4,400 animals. 

His Catalogue of Life went on to survive the rise of Darwinian evolution, the discovery of whole classes of organisms, such as bacteria and viruses that the Swede never suspected existed, as well as the 20th century discovery of DNA and the genome project. 

In 1751, Linnaeus said in his Philosophia Botanica, ÒIf you do not know the names of things, the knowledge of them is lost tooÓ. Two years later, in Species Plantarum, he introduced the binomial system of two-part names -- genus and species -- that has become todayÕs global standard for naming nature.

So, before Linneaus the humble tomato enjoyed the long Latin polynomial name: ÒSolanum caule inermi herbaceo, foliis pinnatis incisisÓ, which means the Òsolanum with the smooth stem which is herbaceous and has incised pinnate leavesÓ. Linnaeus replaced this with a two-part name, Solanum lycopersicum.

The genus Solanum relates to the potato, tomato and Nightshade, while the species is derived from ÒlycoÓ, wolf, plus ÒpersicumÓ, peach, i.e., Òwolf-peachÓ. Hence, the correct binomial name is S. lycopersicum.

As his work progressed Linnaeus made changes: In the first edition whales were erroneously classified as fishes; in the 10th edition, published in 1758, the whales were reclassified as mammals.

Following his death in 1778, his wife Sara von LinnŽ offered LinnaeusÕs entire collection to Sir Joseph Banks, the naturalist who had recently sailed the world with Cook. Banks declined the offer but on his advice a young Norwich botanist, James Smith, bought the lot for 1,000 guineas and had it shipped back to England -- only to find heÕd hit the botanical jackpot. 

The haul of 19,000 sheets of pressed plants, 3,200 insects, 1,500 shells, 3,000 books, and 3,000 letters inspired the founding of the Linnean Society of London in 1788. The treasure, now augmented with 48,000 additional specimens, will be freely available online as part of the SocietyÕs CARLS project by the end of the year.

Today nearly 1,009,000 species have been registered under his system and scientists hope that by 2011 they will have indexed an estimated 1.75 million species, from plants and animals to fungi and viruses.
/ENDS