LINNAEUS [CARL VON LINNE] (1707-1778), Swedish botanist, was born on May 13, O.S. (May 23, N.S.), 1707, at Rashult, in Salaland, the son of a pastor. He was educated at Wexio, Lund and Uppsala, where Olaf Celsius (d. 1756) engaged him to assist in the compilation of his Hierobotanicon. A review of S. Vaillant's Sermo de Structura Florum (1718) and Wallin's Ganzos Phyton (1729) led him to examine the stamens and pistils of flowers, and, convinced of the importance of these organs, he formed the idea of basing a system of arrangement upon them. Two years after his appointment as lecturer in botany at Uppsala he explored Lapland for the Academy of Sciences and published the scientific results in his Flora Lapponica (Amsterdam, 1737); his own account was published in English by Sir J. E. Smith, under the title Lachesis Lapponica, in 1811. After a further jour ney through Dalecarlia, he proceeded to Harderwijk, where he took his M.D. In the same year Jan Fredrik Gronovius (169o 1762), who was visiting him, was so struck by the ms. of the Systema naturae that he published it at his own expense. This famous system, artificial as it was, largely made its way by the lucid and admirable laws, and comments on them, which were issued almost at the same time. (See BOTANY.) After a visit to England in 1736, Linnaeus published his Genera Plantarum, a volume which must be considered the starting-point of modern systematic botanyl and in the following year, 1738, his Classes Plantarum. Returning to his native country by way of France, he settled as a physician in Stockholm. He was soon appointed naval physician, with minor appointments, and in June 1739 married Sara Moraea. In 1741 he was appointed to the chair of medicine at Uppsala, but in 1742 exchanged it for that of botany. In the same year, previous to this exchange, he travelled through bland and Gothland, by command of the state, publishing his re sults in Oliindska och Gothlandska Resa (1745). Its index shows the first use of specific names in nomenclature.
Henceforward his time was taken up by teaching and the preparation of other works. He issued his Flora Suecica and Fauna Suecica in 1745; his two volumes of observations made during journeys in Sweden, Wastgi5ta Resa (1747) and Skdnska Resa (1751); his Hortus Upsaliensis (1748) ; his Philosophia Botanica (175o) and his important Species Plantarum (1753), in which the specific names are fully set forth. In 1755 he declined an invitation from the king of Spain to settle in that country, with a liberal salary, and full liberty of conscience. In 1761 he was granted a patent of nobility, antedated to 1757, from which time he was styled Carl von Linne. To his great delight the tea-plant was introduced alive into Europe in 1763. An apoplectic attack in 1774 greatly weakened him, and he died on Jan. 1o, 1778 at Uppsala, in the cathedral in which he was buried.
Linnaeus delighted in devising classifications, and not only systematized the three kingdoms of nature, but even drew up a treatise on the Genera Morborum. He was the first to enunciate the principles for defining genera and species, and to adhere to a uniform use of specific names.
Of his 18o odd works those published during his lifetime were enumerated in R. Pulteney's General View of the Writings of Linnaeus (1780. His epistolae ineditae appeared at Groningen in 1830. His widow sold his collections and books to Sir J. E. Smith, the first president of the Linnean Society of London. When Smith died in 1828 a subscription was raised to purchase the herbarium and library for the Society, whose property they became.
See T. M. Fries, Linne, Lefnadsteckning (2 vols., Stockholm, 1903, Eng. version, 1923, with full bibliography) ; 0. Levertin, Carl v. Linne (Stockholm, 1907) ; J. M. Hulth, Bibliographia Linnaeana (Uppsala, 1907) ; 0. Hjelt, Carl v. Linne's betydelse sdsom naturforskare och ldkare (ib. 1907, Germ. trs., 1908) and W. Junk, Linne im Lichte neuerer Forschung (1925).