How complete and correct was Linnaeus' knowledge and classification of the Swedish flora?

The degree to which Carolus Linnaeus managed to describe the vascular plant species diversity of his native country, and the proportion of his taxonomic decisions concerning the rank and generic classification of these same species that are considered correct by present-day taxonomists, is analyzed by comparing the most recent checklist of the Swedish flora, excluding later immigrants, with the works of Linnaeus. It is concluded that 79% of the species occurring in Sweden by the year 1700 were recognized and accepted by Linnaeus. Of these, ca 74% are still today accepted with the same rank, and are referred to the same genus. Thus, one answer to the current popular question of to what extent 'Linnaeus was right' is: approximately three quarters!     

Linnaeus in 20th century Sweden

JONSELL, B., 1992. Linnaeus in 20th century Sweden. An account is presented of Linnaeus as a national monument in present-day Sweden, the current popular romantic view, scholarly studies on Linnaeus, the natural history tradition in Sweden, the role of Linnaeus in trade and tourism, and the literary tradition.     

Linnaeus as an Economic Botanist

Summary

The interest of Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) in the uses of plants as manifested in his travel books and dissertations was much influenced by the urge of his country, war-impoverished Sweden, for national recovery and self-sufficiency. His official Swedish journeys of 1741–1749 were primarily economic surveys, giving much attention to locally used dye-plants. The dissertation Pan Suecicus (1749) details experimental feeding of cattle, pigs, sheep and goats with native Swedish plants: it also represents an important stage in the development of the Linnaean binomial method for naming species.     

Rank and sequence in Caspar Bauhin's Pinax

CAIN, A. J., 1994. Rank and sequence in Caspar Bauhin's Pinax. Bauhin's consistent use of genera, species and binominals, applauded by historians as anticipating Linnaeus's theory and practice, does not appear on closer examination to be intended as anything of the sort. His use of the terms genus and species is as in Aristotelian logic, with a shifting reference, at all taxonomic levels. His typographical layout, emphasizing (but far from invariably employing) single-word names for effectively generic entities, often qualified by ‘and its species’, gives the impression of Linnaean practice, and coincides with it not infrequently, but not with Linnaean theory. The main entities for which it can be said that Bauhin uses fairly consistently a biverbal binominal name-phrase, like Linnaeus' trivial names, were in fact in Linnaeus's eyes two levels of supraspecific groupings. The main entities in Bauhin which Linnaeus recognized as species, as is shown by his quotations in the Species plantarum, are subdivisions of his biverbally or nearly biverbally named groupings, but themselves have multiverbal names. These correspond closely to Linnaeus's diagnostic specific names, not at all to his biverbal trivial names. Bauhin probably had no conception of the species and genus as ranks in the modern sense, first adumbrated by Tournefort and utilized by Linnaeus. Bauhin certainly tried to group forms by natural affinity, as did Theophrastus before him and Linnaeus afterwards. Not being alerted to the importance of the details of the flower and fruit, he used what characters he could find, notably, but not by any means exclusively, leaf shape. He composed the Pinax as a nomenclatural concordance to earlier authors, notably Dioscorides, Theophrastus and Pliny. He retained the sequence of major groups of Theophrastus (as the greatest authority on plants) but reversed it to start with the best-known plants, grasses. Where Theophrastus gave no help, in the cryptogams, Bauhin inserted as a pendant his own series from ferns down to fungi, using the Aristotelian principles of the gradation of forms. His overall arrangement, therefore, is not a simple progression but a chain with pendants. Bauhin is far closer to earlier authors than to Linnaeus, but his typography, along with other authors, may well have helped to incite Linnaeus to a more rigorous and consistent use of ranked groups and biverbal names.     

Development of the amentiferous concept

The amentiferous concept developed in pre-Linnaean times, and early botanists clearly recognized the topical similarities among plants bearing aments. Among the amentiferous plants placed side by side in early times were many that would not be so situated today—e.g., gymnosperms intermixed with dicotyledons. By the time of Linnaeus, only dicotyledons were included among the ament-bearing groups. J. G. Gmelin was first to recognize ament-bearing plants (including some gymnosperms) under a single category, “Amentaceae.” Linnaeus, A. L. de Jussieu, W. J. Hooker, Lindley, and Eichler, at one time or another, placed these plants in a separate amentaceous category, but never under the term “Amentiferae.” The name was never used by Engler although he did place the ament-bearing plants among the first families of his Archichlamydeae. The category “Amentiferae” appears to have entered the literature in British publications and through British/English translations from the German.     

Modification of a scanning transmission electron microscope specimen holder for large section viewing.

A modification of a scanning transmission electron microscope specimen holder which permits full viewing of large plastic embedded tissue sections is discussed. The method for producing one-centimeter diameter "giant" grids is explained and the procedure for sample preparation is outlined. The modification aids the microscopist in his evaluation of tissue structural relationships by providing large areas of tissue for examination and reduces significantly the time required to prepare and examine standard 1-2 mm2 electron microscopy tissue sections. Light and electron microscopic evaluations can be made on the same tissue sections.     

A translation of Carl Linnaeus's introduction to Genera plantarum (1737)

This paper provides a translation of the introduction, titled 'Account of the work' Ratio operis, to the first edition of Genera plantarum, published in 1737 by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778). The text derives its significance from the fact that it is the only published text in which Linnaeus engaged in an explicit discussion of his taxonomic method. Most importantly, it shows that Linnaeus was clearly aware that a classification of what he called 'natural genera' could not be achieved by a top-down approach of logical division, but had to rely on inductive, bottom-up procedures. The translation is supplemented by explanatory notes.     

Modification of a Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope Specimen Holder for Large Section Viewing

A modification of a scanning transmission electron microscope specimen holder which permits full viewing of large plastic embedded tissue sections is discussed. The method for producing one-centimeter diameter “giant” grids is explained and the procedure for sample preparation is outlined The modification aids the microscopist in his evaluation of tissue structural relationship by providing large areas of tissue for examination and reduces significantly the time required to prepare and examine standard 1-2 mm² electron microscopy tissue sections. Light and electron microscopic evaluations can be made on the same tissue sections.     

Darwin on Aristotle

Charles Darwin's famous 1882 letter, in response to a gift by his friend, William Ogle of Ogle's recent translation of Aristotle's Parts of Animals, in which Darwin remarks that his “two gods,” Linnaeus and Cuvier, were “mere school-boys to old Aristotle,” has been thought to be only an extravagantly worded gesture of politeness. However, a close examination of this and other Darwin letters, and of references to Aristotle in Darwin's earlier work, shows that the famous letter was written several weeks after a first, polite letter of thanks, and was carefully formulated and literally meant. Indeed, it reflected an authentic, and substantial, increase in Darwin's already high respect for Aristotle, as a result of a careful reading both of Ogle's Introduction and of more or less the portion of Ogle's translation which Darwin says he has read. Aristotle's promotion to the pantheon, as an examination of the basis for Darwin's admiration of Linnaeus and Cuvier suggests, was most likely the result specifically of Darwin's late discovery that the man he already knew as “one of the greatest ... observers that ever lived” (1879) was also the ancient equivalent both of the great modern systematist and of the great modern advocate of comparative functional explanation. It may also have reflected some real insight on Darwin's part into the teleological aspect of Aristotle's thought, indeed more insight than Ogle himself had achieved, as a portion of their correspondence reveals. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Noctuoidea (Lepidoptera) described by Linnaeus

Linnaeus described 166 nominal species of Noctuoidea, of which 144 (86.7%) are currently used as valid names, 18 are synonyms, one is a homonym and three taxa remain unknown. Seven taxa were described solely from illustrations in contemporary literature. Lectotypes are designated for 139 (87.4%) of the 159 remaining taxa, 122 of them from the Linnaean collection in London, 13 from the Queen Ludovica Ulrica's collection in Uppsala, Sweden, and four from other contemporary collections. Two Linnaean senior synonyms are introduced: Hada plebeja comb. nov. (Linnaeus, 1761) for the current H. nana (Hufnagel, 1766) and Oeonistis altica (Linnaeus, 1768) comb. nov. for Oe. entella (Cramer, 1779). Erebus occiduus (Linnaeus, 1758) syn. nov. is a junior subjective synonym of E. crepuscularis (Linnaeus, 1758); L. marmorides (Cramer, 1775) Stat. rev. should be reinstated for Letis occidua auct. In two species pairs the Linnaean names have been interpreted incorrectly. The lectotype designation of Phalaena prasinana Linnaeus, 1758, by Lempke (1947) is invalid because the specimen is not syntypic. According to the new lectotype, Pseudoips prasinanus (Linnaeus, 1758) comb. nov. replaces P. faganus (Fabricius, 1781), and Bena bicolorana (Fuessly, 1775) comb. nov. is available for the other species. Abrostola triplasia (Linnaeus, 1758) Stat. rev. replaces A. trigemina (Werneburg, 1864), and for the other species A. triparlila (Hufnagel, 1766) should be reinstated. One neotype designation [Eilema complanum (Linnaeus, 1758)], one lectotype designation [Xylena exsolela (Linnaeus, 1758)], and precedence of a junior synonym [Ophideres fullonia (Clerck, 1764)] over its unused senior synonym are to be referred to the ICZN; until their decision the current usage must be followed. The identity of Mesapamea secalis (Linnaeus, 1758) stat. rev. corresponds to current usage, but, under presence of syntypic material, the recent neotype designation by Lempke (1988) will be referred to the ICZN. The revision is mainly based on the discovery that the insect pins and the way specimens are prepared give evidence of the authenticity of the material. Contrary to the views of earlier authors, Linnaeus had his labels with the specific name pinned against the bottom of the drawers by the specimen pin. Because the labels have been moved twice during subsequent curations, their present position is less indicative of the authenticity than has been previously suggested. The origin of the so-called n-labels is discussed.     

The original presentation of Boyle's law.

The original presentation of what we know as Boyle's law has several interesting features. First, the technical difficulties of the experiment were considerable, because Boyle used a glass tube full of mercury that was nearly 2.5 m long, and the large pressures sometimes shattered the glass. Next, Boyle's table of results contains extremely awkward fractions, such 10/13, 2/17, 13/19, and 18/23, which look very strange to us today. This was because he calculated the pressure for a certain volume of gas by using simple multiplication and division, keeping the vulgar fractions. Boyle was not able to express the numbers as decimals because this notation was not in common use at the time. Finally, his contention that pressure and volume were inversely related depended on the reader's comparing two sets of numbers in adjacent columns to see how well they agreed. Today we would plot the data, but again orthogonal graphs were not in general use in 1662. When Boyle's data are plotted by using modern conventional methods, they strongly support his hypothesis that the volume and pressure of a gas are inversely related.     

An electron microscopical study of developing sympathetic neurons in man

Summary An electron microscopic study has been made of the sympathetic ganglia of a 15 and a 17 week old male human fetus. The fetal sympathetic neurons were densely packed in a scanty connective tissue matrix which also contained blood vessels. The fetal sympathetic neurons had a large, electron-light nucleus with one or two nucleoli, and was of a somewhat mottled appearance due to irregularly dispersed aggregates of fine and coarse granules. The perikaryon usually formed a thin envelope around the nucleus and contained, except for large pigment granules, all intracytoplasmic structures which were also found in mature sympathetic neurons. Adjacent sympathetic cells were either in immediate contact, or slightly separated by a wedge of electron-light satellite expansions, or lined by primitive axons. The satellite cells were in the early state of development. Electron-dense axons either stood side by side with, or were slightly engulfed by light Schwann cell expansions and formed distinct bundles surrounded by a common basement membrane. There was practically no trace of myelin formation or Schwann cell wrapping characteristic for unmyelinated fibers as seen in the adult.This investigation was supported (in whole) by United States Public Health Service Grant NB-01879-05, Institute for Nervous Diseases and Blindness.Grateful acknowledgment is made to Professor Dr. John Lind who madea vailable the fetal material through the Laboratory of Prenatal Growth and Development, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.The authors wish to thank Docent Dr. Gunnar Bloom who provided the facilities necessary to prepare the fetal material for electron microscopical examination, in his laboratory for Cell Research, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.     

Phage particles infecting branchial Rickettsiales-like organisms in banded carpet shell Polititapes virgineus (Bivalvia) from Galicia (NW Spain)

Basophilic intracellular prokaryotic-like colonies were observed in the gills of banded carpet shell Polititapes virgineus (= Tapes rhomboides) (Linnaeus, 1767) from a natural bed in Galicia (NW Spain). Light microscope observations suggested the presence of 2 types of colonies, but transmission electron microscopy revealed that these were the same Rickettsiales-like colonies, one infected and the other uninfected by phage particles. This is the first report of the presence of phage particles in Rickettsiales-like organisms in the gills of P. virgineus.     

eSIP: A Novel Solution-Based Sectioned Image Property Approach for Microscope Calibration

Fluorescence confocal microscopy represents one of the central tools in modern sciences. Correspondingly, a growing amount of research relies on the development of novel microscopic methods. During the last decade numerous microscopic approaches were developed for the investigation of various scientific questions. Thereby, the former qualitative imaging methods became replaced by advanced quantitative methods to gain more and more information from a given sample. However, modern microscope systems being as complex as they are, require very precise and appropriate calibration routines, in particular when quantitative measurements should be compared over longer time scales or between different setups. Multispectral beads with sub-resolution size are often used to describe the point spread function and thus the optical properties of the microscope. More recently, a fluorescent layer was utilized to describe the axial profile for each pixel, which allows a spatially resolved characterization. However, fabrication of a thin fluorescent layer with matching refractive index is technically not solved yet. Therefore, we propose a novel type of calibration concept for sectioned image property (SIP) measurements which is based on fluorescent solution and makes the calibration concept available for a broader number of users. Compared to the previous approach, additional information can be obtained by application of this extended SIP chart approach, including penetration depth, detected number of photons, and illumination profile shape. Furthermore, due to the fit of the complete profile, our method is less susceptible to noise. Generally, the extended SIP approach represents a simple and highly reproducible method, allowing setup independent calibration and alignment procedures, which is mandatory for advanced quantitative microscopy.     

Charles Lyell –"the father of geology"– as a forerunner of modern ecology

In 1830, Charles Lyell published the first volume of his influential book, "The principles of geology". Young Charles Darwin took the book on board the "Beagle" and, upon his return, acknowledged the contribution it made to his own research. Lyell did not believe in transmutation and evolution, and explained the differences in the fossil fauna between different geological formations by the accumulated environmental changes over a very long geological time. He describes ecological interactions of organisms with their biotic and abiotic environment in a language similar to current ecological concepts. Lyell may be seen as one of the forerunners of modern ecology.     

Darwin's species category realism

Ever since Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published, the received view has been that Darwin literally thought of species as not extra-mentally real. In 1969 Michael Ghiselin upset the received view by interpreting Darwin to mean that species taxa are indeed real but not the species category. In 1985 John Beatty took Ghiselin's thesis a step further by providing a strategy theory to explain why Darwin would say one thing (his repeated nominalistic definition of species) and do another (hold that species taxa are real). In the present paper I attempt to take this line of interpretation to a new level. Guided by the principle of charity, I provide and analyze a considerable amount of evidence from Darwin's mature writings (both private and published) to show that (contra Ghiselin and Beatty) Darwin did not simply accept the species delimitations of his fellow naturalists but actually employed, repeatedly and consistently, a species concept in a thoroughly modern sense, albeit with an implicit definition, a concept uniquely his own and fully in accord with his theory of evolution by natural selection. This implicit concept and definition is carefully reconstructed in the present paper. A new strategy theory is then provided to account for why Darwin would define species (both taxa and category) nominalistically on the one hand but delimit species realistically on the other.     

Linnaean sources and concepts of orchids

Background

Linnaeus developed a robust system for naming plants and a useful, if mechanical, system for classifying them. His binomial nomenclature proved the catalyst for the rapid development of our knowledge of orchids, with his work on the family dating back to 1737 in the first edition of his Genera Plantarum. His first work devoted to orchids, indeed the first monograph of the family, was published in 1740 and formed the basis for his account in Species Plantarum, published in 1753, in which he gave a binomial name to each species. Given the overwhelming number of orchids, he included surprisingly few – only 62 mostly European species – in Species Plantarum, his seminal work on the plants of the world. This reflects the European origin of modern botany and the concentration of extra-European exploration on other matters, such as conquest, gold and useful plants. Nevertheless, the scope of Linnaeus'' work is broad, including plants from as far afield as India, Japan, China and the Philippines to the east, and eastern Canada, the West Indies and northern South America to the west. In his later publications he described and named a further 45 orchids, mostly from Europe, South Africa and the tropical Americas.

Scope

The philosophical basis of Linnaeus'' work on orchids is discussed and his contribution to our knowledge of the family assessed. His generic and species concepts are considered in the light of current systematic ideas, but his adoption of binomial nomenclature for all plants is his lasting legacy.Key words: Classification, Linnaeus, nomenclature, Orchidaceae, orchids     

Cain on Linnaeus: the scientist-historian as unanalysed entity

Zoologist A. J. Cain began historical research on Linnaeus in 1956 in connection with his dissatisfaction over the standard taxonomic hierarchy and the rules of binomial nomenclature. His famous 1958 paper ‘Logic and Memory in Linnaeus's System of Taxonomy’ argues that Linnaeus was following Aristotle's method of logical division without appreciating that it properly applies only to ‘analysed entities’ such as geometric figures whose essential nature is already fully known. The essence of living things being unanalysed, there is no basis on which to choose the right characters to define a genus nor on which to differentiate species. Yet Cain's understanding of Aristotle, which depended on a 1916 text by H. W. B. Joseph, was fatally flawed. In the 1990s Cain devoted himself to further historical study and softened his verdict on Linnaeus, praising his empiricism. The idea that Linnaeus was applying an ancient and inappropriate method cries out for fresh study and revision.