Nomenclature | Happy 300th Birthday!

Swedish physician and botanist Carolus Linnaeus (AKA Carl von Linné) would have been 300 years old today.  Known as the father of modern taxonomy, he developed the system of scientific nomenclature we use in one form or another to this day: Kingdom, Class, Order, Genus, Species, Variety.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau said of him: “I know no greater man on earth.” August Strindberg eulogized him as “a poet who happened to become a naturalist.” And Swiss physiologist Albrecht von Haller called him “the second Adam” because, like the first man, he named every living thing.

Here are some fun facts about Carl:

At the time he lived, most Swedes had no family name. When he entered the University of Lund, he invented the surname Linnaeus after the linn ‘linden tree’ that served as his family crest.

He included a variety of mythological creatures (including the troglodyte, satyr, hydra, and phoenix) in his system of classification.

He was the first person to figure out how to grow bananas in Europe.

He made a habit of naming ugly plants after his critics. Hmmm.