Linnaeus Collection

When Linnaeus needed to write on a well-defined scientific topic of a shorter nature, he often chose the academic dissertation as the form of publication, and he presided over no fewer than 186 such theses. The subjects varied, and several dissertations are of significant historical importance in science. The respondent rarely authored the majority of the content, so when Linnaeus later published the dissertations in book form, he did so under his own name. The purpose of the dissertations at that time was not to present new research findings made by the respondent, but primarily to assess their ability to present and support an academic argument and to test the respondent’s knowledge of Latin.

Peloria means monster, and one is surprised by the title when seeing that the dissertation is about a plant, specifically the yellow toadflax, Linaria vulgaris. The title is due to a discovery in Roslagen of entirely different flowers with radial symmetry instead of the normal more complex ones with a single plane of symmetry. This was shocking for Linnaeus, who until then had believed in the constancy of species but now realized that they could change, commenting: ”This is surely no less remarkable than if a cow were to give birth to a calf with a wolf’s head”. Linnaeus was, of course, far too keen an observer not to eventually recognise that we had undergone evolution, something that becomes apparent in several of his subsequent writings. Today we know that the aberrant flowers of the yellow toadflax were due to a mutation that blocked the development of the normal flowers, allowing the genes of an older, simpler type of flower to be expressed.

The travel accounts are undoubtedly the most well-known writings of Linnaeus to the general public. In these, he addressed a wider audience than the academic one, and thus, Latin was replaced with Swedish. Besides being famous for their richness in observations and reliability, it is the language itself that makes them highly enjoyable even today.
Most texts from this era feel outdated, but Linnaeus’s very personal language and style carry through the centuries with remarkable elasticity and vitality. All of Linnaeus’s journeys during the 1740s were undertaken on behalf of the Estates of the Realm, primarily aiming to discover unknown resources valuable to Sweden’s economy.

This was the first of the journeys Linnaeus made in the 1740s after being appointed professor in Uppsala in the spring of 1741. Immediately after his appointment, Linnaeus set off riding with six handpicked young men, each with specific responsibilities. They first visited Öland and then Gotland, but it’s important not to forget that Småland was also visited on both the outward and return journeys, and the book contains numerous interesting observations from this region. The printed travelogue was published four years after the journey and has become one of the great classics of Swedish literature. The economic yield was modest, but as Linnaeus himself said, ”As far as Natural History is concerned, I have found more on this journey than anyone could have presumed”. And indeed, he did.

The Skåne journey was carried out in 1749 and became the last of the provincial travels. This time Linnaeus did not ride but travelled more comfortably by horse and carriage, accompanied only by a secretary. Like Linnaeus’s earlier travel accounts, the Skåne journey also contains a multitude of reliable observations across various fields and has also become a classic. Interesting observations from Småland are also included in this travelogue, and a very unusual event is associated with the section dealing with the area around Växjö: Linnaeus was censored! Originally, Linnaeus wrote a passage in which he spoke positively of the slash-and-burn agriculture in the area. This was discovered during the printing by Linnaeus’s sponsors and was not appreciated. Linnaeus, extremely insulted, was forced to remove this section and replaced it with a harmless text about manure farming. In most copies, the original text is replaced, but a few ”slash-and-burn” copies exist.

In Philosophia botanica, Linnaeus summarises and develops his views on botany, making information previously scattered across several of his earlier works more comprehensively accessible. The book is illustrated with explanatory plates and contains further development of a natural plant system reflecting real kinship, something Linnaeus first began to develop in Classes plantarum. To understand the significance of Philosophia botanica from an international perspective, one can refer to the French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who said the following when visited by the Swedish orientalist Jacob Jonas Björnståhl: ”In this Book, there is more wisdom than in the grandest of Folios, and whereas most of your Books from the North are burdened with too much erudition, there is not a word in this that is not necessary”.

As the title suggests, the book is a compilation of plants found in Sweden. The word ”Flora” can denote both the plants in a certain area and now also a book that lists these plants. Linnaeus’s Flora Svecica was the first compilation of wild Swedish plants and would have many followers. It also contains information on where the plants are found. Compared to older plant listings, it differs by listing plants regardless of their significance for households, attributing intrinsic value to the plants. The book’s only plate shows a Linnaea, the plant named after Linnaeus himself.

The book is a zoological parallel to Flora Svecica and is, thus, a compilation of the animals found in Sweden, the first of its kind. Fauna Svecica is also known for Linnaeus’s introduction of the symbols for gender, ♀ and ♂, which today are universally recognised around the world. He did this on the book’s two fold-out plates. Previously, these symbols had only been used to denote copper and the planet Venus, and iron and the planet Mars, respectively.

When Linnaeus wanted to reach a broader audience, he switched from Latin to Swedish. The most famous example is his travel accounts, but the most widely distributed Swedish-language contributions were published in almanacs in the 1740s, which were printed in large editions. In these, he wrote about things that could be of interest to the general public in household management. Here we see the almanac for 1749 (thus printed in 1748), where Linnaeus writes about beer. Another drink that was the subject of an almanac article the year before was liquor. Despite the large editions, Linnaeus’s contributions in the almanacs are among the rarest since almanacs were consumables and in most cases have not been preserved.

Linnaeus spent a three-year period from 1735 to 1738 in Holland, which was the science superpower of that time, making it the right place to publish the manuscripts he had started in Sweden. Linnaeus began by obtaining his medical degree in Harderwijk and subsequently published a total of 13 works during this period, several of which were epoch-making and became classics in biology. This was facilitated by his employment with one of the leading directors of the Dutch East India Company, Georg Clifford, who had a remarkable botanical garden and a large herbarium at Hartekamp outside Haarlem.

Classes plantarum was the last of the works Linnaeus published in Holland, primarily aiming to develop ideas he had briefly communicated in another of his Dutch works, Fundamenta botanica, published in the autumn of 1735. The book is perhaps most famous for containing Linnaeus’s first attempt to develop a natural plant system based on real kinship, dividing the plants into a total of 65 orders corresponding to natural families. The sexual system was practical but artificial, as not all plants with, for example, five stamens are closely related to each other. The book also discusses, among other things, fructification, i.e., the processes involved in fruit setting.

Internationally, Systema naturae is by far the most famous book written by a Swede. Here, Linnaeus presents classification systems for the three kingdoms of nature used at the time: plant, animal, and mineral. The systems for plants and animals were quickly adopted due to their practical utility. There was a great need to accurately describe biological diversity, as the number of known plant and animal species was rapidly increasing at this time, not least through the colonisation of tropical areas. The large format is explained by Linnaeus’s desire to include an entire kingdom on a single spread, and here we see the plant kingdom divided into 24 classes based on Linnaeus’s sexual system, which is based on the number and form of the stamens and pistils. Systema naturae was published in new, constantly expanded editions during Linnaeus’s lifetime, but then in the usual octavo format. Shown here is the sixth edition from 1748, which is also the first illustrated edition.

During his employment with George Clifford at Hartekamp, Linnaeus was one of the first people to get a banana plant to both flower and bear fruit, which attracted great attention. He achieved this in just four months by using rich soil, exposing the plant to a few weeks of drought, and then drenching it in water, all to mimic tropical weather. Musa Cliffortiana, Linnaeus’s first writing describing a single plant, was printed in a small edition for distribution and is, therefore, very rare. The writing includes two beautiful fold-out copper engravings depicting the whole banana plant as well as details of the flower and fruit.

The dissertation on the dwarf birch (Betula nana) is Linnaeus’s first dissertation as a professor. The species is primarily found in northern regions but also occurs as far south as northern Skåne. Linnaeus was familiar with the species from an early age, as it was found at Taglamyren along the road to Växjö. Taglamyren is also mentioned in the dissertation, and to this day, dwarf birch can be viewed at this site, which is now a nature reserve.