Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is one of Sweden’s most world-famous historic figures. He is the father of the modern classification of flora and fauna and has been recognized as the “flower king” by generations of botanists around the world. He lived under the reigns of both the “warrior king” Karl XII and the “culture king” Gustav III and it is very much through the prolific writings of Linnaeus, that we know so much about Sweden during these two so diverse eras. A visit to his houses and gardens provides a further insight into an exceptional and endearing man.

Even though there is a sign saying Linnés Museum and Gardens, it is easy to miss the door in the plank that leads to the Botani-cal Gardens in the centre of the university town of Uppsala, 50 minutes by train from Stockholm. The garden is so relatively small that it is hard to imagine that by the middle of the 18th century it housed more varieties of plants than any other botanical garden in the world. It is fascinating to see the small size of the prefect’s house that was home to the greatest botanist of all times.

Carl Linnaeus was appointed Professor in Medicine in Uppsala in 1741. He was able to move into the wild and neglected garden by switching subjects with the professor in botany. The national genius lovingly and painstakingly restored the gardens and lived in the prefect’s house, with his stern wife, Sara Lisa and their five children, during his 36-year long teaching career.

There are approximately 1 300 species that grow in the garden today and you can see exhibitions inside the Orangery (May-August daily 9am-9pm at Svartbäcksgatan 27, phone 018-10 94 90 www.linnaeus. uu.se) where the botanist used to lecture.

Visitors from as far away as Germany, Holland, England and America came to visit and were fascinated by Linnaeus’ 3 000 different plants. Many visitors brought plants and seeds with them and Queen Catherine the Great of Russia sent him the Bleeding Heart (Löjtnantshjärta) that you can now see blooming all over Sweden in the middle of May. Linnaeus and his visitors also delighted in his menagerie of monkeys and other exotic animals. A favourite was the tame North American raccoon called Sjubb that Linnaeus wrote about extesively and that he mourned for weeks when it was killed by a neighbour’s dog.

In his study Linnaeus had a parrot that shouted “Mister Carl, it’s twelve o’clock” when dinner was served. The parrot could imitate its master’s voice perfectly and shouted “come in” when there was a knock on the door. To the visitor’s surprise there was nobody there.
The Linnaeus Museum (open June-Sep 15, Tue-Sun noon-4pm, phone 018-13 65 40, www.uu.se) is the botanist’s old home at the entrance of the garden. When the family moved in, the house was in a very poor condition, “more like a robber’s lair and an owl’s nest than a professor’s residence,” as Linnaeus put it. The Linnaeus Society refurbished the 300-year old building when its last resident, the composer Hugo Alfvén moved out, and the interior has been restored so it looks exactly like it did when the Linnaeus family lived there. You get a good idea of the 18th century home life and work thanks to the original clothes, textiles, paintings and furniture.

In the large china closet downstairs, you can see the tea service that was specially made for Linnaeus in China, decorated with his favourite flower that he named Linnea Borealis. The small twin flower, (that now also graces an Ikea service) has a trailing wooden stem and flowers only briefly at, or just after, midsummer and always far from the madding crowds. Carl Linnaeus was often painted holding his “signature flower”, as seen on the portrait of him in his Laplander’s costume, that now hangs in the museum. The Linnea also symbolizes the humble origin of the man who ended his days as a knight.

Carl Linnaeus’ grandfather was a peasant. His father was a curate in Råshult in the province of Småland when Carl was born. He changed his name from Nils Ingmarsson to Nils Linnaeus, after a lime lind tree on the family farm. Hence Carl got the surname Linnaeus instead of Nilsson that was the custom of the time. When he was knighted he choose the name Carl von Linné.

Today you can visit the Råshult cottage where Carl was born and lived during the first 18 months of his life. From here the family moved to the nearby Stenbrohult vicarage that later burnt down. You can see a statue of the young Carl Linnaeus by Gerda Spinchorn at the spot of the old vicarage.

Råshult’s Södregård, or “Linnaeus Cottage” as it is commonly called has been a museum with an adjoining cafeteria for many years (open May 1 to September 30 9am-6pm. Take Road 23 to Stenbrohult 10 km north of Älmhult). At the back of the cottage is a tall stone column with a north star on top as a commemoration. The cottage is actually not the original one, but the atmosphere is still quite enchanting.

The most interesting feature is the 18th century “kitchen garden” with many old-fashioned vegetables that have gone into oblivion, and the beautiful surrounding meadows that Linné reminisced about all his life. Carl’s father was a talented amateur botanist who taught his son all he knew and even gave him a plot to garden here when Carl was five. On May 4 this year Råshult will be inaugurated as Sweden’s tenth cultural reserve.

Carl Linnaeus’ family wanted him to pursue a secure church career, but a teacher encouraged him to become a doctor. He started his studies in Lund and went on from there to Uppsala. He took his final exam at a Dutch university.

Already at age 22, Carl Linnaeus published his Introduction to the Floral Nuptials that outlines his botanical classification system based on the sex of the plant. The booklet caught the interest of Rudbeckius the Younger and gave Linnaeus wide recognition, as well as his first job as a student lecturer. It was Rudbeckius who was the inspiration for Linnaeus’ expedition to Lappland when he was 25.

The five-month journey to northern Sweden, Nor-way and Finland was arduous and required the services of an interpreter, but Linnaeus learned much about the flora, fau-na and minerals of the region and he returned with lots of samples and notes that later resulted in two books. On this trip Linnaeus learned a lot about the Saami and through his writings, he also became known as one of the world’s first ethnographers.

During his expedition, Linnaeus visited a Lapp pearl fishery at Purkijaur and became intrigued by the problem of finding a ran-dom pearl among thousands of mussels. As soon as he was back in Uppsala, he success-fully introduced a small amount of plaster of paris into mussel shells that he left in the Fyris River. Six years later he harvested several pearls, about the size of a pea.

The Lappland trip led to an invitation to Linnaeus from the Governor of Dalarna to tour the province. In Falun the young scientist met and fell in love with Sara Lisa Moraea, the daughter of the local mining doctor. The couple got engaged, but waited four years to get married as Carl had to complete his final exam in Holland.

With a doctor’s degree, he was now ready to return to Sweden but at the University of Leiden, he met two wealthy academics who offered to pay the cost of printing Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae with his famous sexual classification system that codified and simplified the naming of plants, thus making their study accessible to all people. The first edition (1735) consisted of 12 folio pages. By 1766 the epoch-making book had grown to 2 300 pages with more than 15 000 species of the three natural kingdoms: minerals, plants and animals.

In Holland Linnaeus also met a rich English banker who hired him to take care of his estate de Hartekamp, south of Haarlem, which had a botanical garden, large herbariums and an excellent library. It was a wonderful job that also brought Linnaeus to England and France and afforded him the time to get 14 books (!) published, and put together the Hortus Cliffortiamis with 450 folio pages with beautiful plant illustrations.

By now Europe was wide open for the famous young Swede, but he returned to Stockholm where he set up his medical practice and finally got married. In the capital Linnaeus helped found the Swedish Academy of Science and became its first president, before moving to Uppsala to take up his new job as professor in medicine.

Although Carl Linnaeus loved his Uppsala residence and garden, he worried about the typhus-like illness that many of the town’s residents contracted because of the close proximity to the Fyris River. So when the two estates, Hammarby and Sävja, close to Uppsala, came up for sale in 1758, the by now wealthy professor bought both and constructed his summer residence at Hammarby (that you see on this month’s cover, open May-September, phone 018-326094, http://www.hammarby. uu.se). Part of the money for the estate came from the patent Linnaeus had sold for his artificial production of pearls.
Carl von Linné knew Hammarby quite well from his field trips. The professor and his students had spent many a night in the hay loft when they were out on excursions (that as Linnéstigar nature walks are still signposted around Uppsala).

Carl Linnaeus went to great pains to plan for the new house. His own quarters at the western end, with his study and bedroom, are the nicest. At a time when wallpapers were a great luxury, Linnaeus got his walls covered with folio pages from an American, and a West Indian illustrated botany book. The plates from which the wallpaper was printed were actually the proofs for books that had been sent to Linnaeus for him to classify the flowers and give them their scientific names.

The walls of the study at Hammarby are covered with portraits of Linnaeus’ family members and his beloved pets. There is a small desk and cabinets for books and the herbaria. Linnaeus would often get to work directly when he woke up as early as four o’clock in the morning. He had breakfast at six, lunch at 12 and worked until four in the afternoon when he craved company. During the day he drank a lot of coffee and smoked his pipe to, as he claimed, soothe his toothache. He consumed alcohol sparingly primarily as medicine and loved wild strawberries that he considered to be a cure for various ailments. When he did not feel sufficiently inspired to keep up his enormous correspondence and other writ-ing, he would take a quick “power-nap” in his bed, that had the typical fabric overhang of the time. He would have several such naps each day and none of them went unnoticed thanks to his loud snoring.

When he really needed peace “from the hustle and bustle of the world” and all his visitors he slipped over to nearby Sävja where you today can see his herb garden and an exhibition about Linnaeus’ me-dicinal plants (phone 018-326045).

During his 36 years as a well-loved teacher in Uppsala, honors rained on Linnaeus. He was made a Knight of the Order of the Polar Star and was the first Swedish scientist to be raised to nobility. His energy level was nothing short of incredible and he prepared some 186 dissertations apart from his many books. He wrote more than 6 000 letters. He had the satisfaction of seeing scientists adopting his dual names system of divisions and naming and above all, putting the whole of creation into a system.

After two strokes left Linnaeus a broken man, he wrote in a shaky hand in his diary “Linné limps, cannot write, can hardly speak!” Two years later he passed away and was laid to rest in the Uppsala Cathedral (where you can see his tomb). “I have lost a man who has done honour to his country as a loyal subject as well as being renowned through the world,” eulogized Gustav III.

As a teacher Carl Linnaeus inspired many of his students, or apostles (see SwPr May 02) as they were called, to go out in the world and continue his work there. They travelled to the East Indies, China, and pioneered the research of Japanese flowers. Johan Peter Kalm travelled in North Amerca and was the first to pen a scientific description of the Niagara Falls. Anton Martin suffered frostbite at the Arctic Ocean, Pehr Löfling died in Venezuela, Fredrik Hasselquist in the Holy Land and Peter Forsskål in Arabia. Two students circumnavigated the globe with James Cook and they all sent back descriptions of plants and animals to Uppsala.

Linnaeus’ spoilt son and his not so successful successor as professor died only five years after his father.