LINN ,E'A, a genus of plants belonging to the order caprifoliacere or honeysuckle family. It contains only one species, L. borealis. It was found by Linnmus in Lapland in 1732 and named after him by Gronovius. Calyx 5-pointed, oval-shaped, deciduous. Corolla narrow, bell-shaped, five-lobed, Stamens four, two shorter, inserted towards the base of the corolla. Pod, three-celled, but havina only one seed, the other two cells having abortive ovules. It is a slender creeping an% trailing little everg-reen, somewhat rounded oval leaves contracted at the base into short petioles, and thread-like upright peduncles having two pedicels at the top, each bearing delicate and fragrant nodding flower. Corolla purple and whitish, hairy inside. It inhabits the more north ern parts of Europe, Asia, and ArneiEciittfpund in moist, mossy woods And cold bogs: .
British America and northern United States; and grows somewhat rarely in New Jersey and in the mountainous parts of Maryland.
LINNiE`US. See Lusuik, ante.
LINNt, KARL vox, often called LarNmus, one of the greatest of naturalists, was b. May 4, 1707, at Rashult, in Smaland (Sweden), where his father was a country parson in very poor circumstances. His parents intended him for his father's profession, but he made little proficiency in the necessary classical studies, manifesting, however, from his very boyhood, the greatest love for botany. His father, disappointed, proposed to apprentice him to a shoemaker; but Dr. John Rothmann, a physician at Wexio, f friend of his father, undertook for a year the expense of his education, and guided him in the study of botany and of physiology. In 1727 the young naturalist went to study medicine at Lund, and in the year following he went to Upsala, but during his attend• ance at the university he endured great poverty. Olaf Celsius received him at last into his house, and availed himself of his assistance in preparing a work on the plants of the Bible. He also won the favorable regard of Olaf Rudbeck, the professor of botany at Upsala, by a paper in which he exhibited the first outlines of the sexual system of botany, with which his name must ever remain connected. Rudbeck appointed him curator of the botanic garden and botanical demonstrator. In his 24th year he wrote a Hortus Uplandicus. From May to November, 1732, he traveled in Lapland, at the expense of the government. The fruits of this tour appeared in his Flora Lapponica. (Amst. 1737). He afterwards spent some time at Fahlun, studying mineralogy, and there he became acquainted with the lady whom he afterwards married, the daughter of a physician named 3Ioritus, who supplied him with the means of going to Holland to take his degree, which he obtained at Harderwyck in 1735. In Holland he
became the associate of some of the most eminent scientific men of the time, and won for himself a high reputation as a naturalist, developing original views which attracted no little attention, while he eagerly prosecuted his researches in all departments of nat ural history. During his residence in Holland Linno coinposed and published, in rapid succession, some of his greatest works, particularly his Systema Naturce (Ley d. 1735), his Fundamenta Botanica (Leyd. 1736), his Genera Plantarum CLeyd. 1737), his Comllarium Gen,erum Plantarum (Leyd. 1737), etc. He visited England and France, and returned to Sweden, where, after some time, he was appointed royal botanist and president of the Stockholm academy. In 1741 he was appointed professor of med.icine in Upsala, and in 1742 professor of botany there. The remainder of 'Ms life was mostly spent at Upsala in the greatest activity of scientific study and authorship. He produced revised editions of his earlier works, and umnerous new works, a Flora Suecica (1745). Fauna Suecica (1746), lIortus Upsaliensis (1748), Materia Medica (1749– 52), his famous Philosophia Botanica (1751), and the Species Plantarum (1753), in some respects the greatest of all his works. Ile died Jan. 10, 1778, the last four years of his life having been spent in great mental and bodily infirmity. Linne was not only a naturalist of most accurate observation, but of most philosophical mind, and upon this depended in a great degree the almost unparalleled influence which he exercised upon the progress of every branch of natural history. Among the important services which he rendered to science, not the least was the introduction of a more clear and precise nomenclature. The groups which he indicated and named have, in the great inajority of instances, been retained amid all the progress of science, and are too natural ever to be broken up; while, if the botanical system which he introduced is artificial, Linne himself was perfectly aware of this, and recommended it for mere temporary use till the knowledge of plants should be so far advanced that it could give place to a natural arrangement. See BOTANY.