Linnaeus, Carl (1707–78)

Carl linnaeus, naturalist and taxonomist, was born May 13, 1707, at Råsult, near Stenbrohult, Småland, Sweden. He was educated at Växjö school and the universities of Lund and Uppsala. In 1732 he travelled to Lappland to study its little known natural history and economy. Linnaeus left Sweden for the Netherlands in April 1735, graduating with an M.D. from the University of Harderwijk that year. He then moved to Leiden where he published his Systema naturae (1735), which classified the three kingdoms of nature (plants, animals, minerals) and outlined the sexual system for the classification of plants. He became physician and garden superintendent to George Clifford, a wealthy Englishman living in the Netherlands.

Linnaeus visited England in 1736, where he persuaded leading naturalists to adopt his systems ...