Carolus Linnaeus: Names, Flowers, and Bananas

Did you know that the forbidden fruit in the Biblical Garden of Paradise, that tempted Adam and Eve, was once thought to be a banana instead of an apple? That’s why Carl Linnaeus gave it the scientific name, Musa paradasiaca. Who was this fellow anyway, the Swedish botanist and doctor whose concept of naming living things and grouping them by similarity established a coherent way to talk about and understand the diversity of life? Linnaeus’ system of binomial nomenclature using genera and species adjectives is still used today.  In this unconventional biography of the ”King of Flowers” we visit a tropical greenhouse at Central Washington University to understand how Linneaus got a banana "tree"  in the Netherlands to produce the first banana fruit grown in Europe. We also talk with science historian Dr. Tamara Caulkins about Linnaeus, the time when he was working (1700s), his rival George LeClerc du Bufon, and the book he worked on throughout his life: Systeme Naturae.  Finally, we hear two delightful classical guitar pieces played by our Tamara and Neil Caulkins, from their Grand March album.  Please see https://nordicontap.com/carolus-linnaeus-names-flowers-and-bananas/ for lots of links, pictures, and additional information.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Når er det tid påNordisk på Trykk!.
[ intro music plays]
Welcome to our podcast,featuring interviews, music,

(00:22):
folktales, and lots of huga,all with a Nordic flavor.
I'm your host.
[ intro music finishesand fades out]
I'd like to tell you a storyabout the king of flowers, a
scientist who created a systemof biological naming and
classification that we stilluse in modified form today.

(00:44):
Who was this person?
What was his life like?
What drove him tocreate and constantly
improve on this system?
Well, I'm talking aboutthe Swede known as Carl
Linnaeus, or in Latin, CarolusLinnaeus, or Carl von Linnae.
This won't be a straightup biography, but rather
a series of stories anddiscussion about his

(01:07):
life and what he createdand why you should care.
Let me start with mydaughter, who was about
five years old when I gaveher a rock collection.
It had about, eh, sixtylittle rocks and pebbles
of various colors andshapes in little bins in

(01:27):
a transparent sewing box.
And when she decided toplay with it, She would
open the lid of the boxand dump all the rocks
onto the floor into a pile.
And then, one by one,she sorted each rock into
different bins based onwhatever classification system

(01:48):
she had made up that day.
Rocks with the same color,rocks that were pretty, rocks
of a certain texture or shape.
You know, we all do this.
We lump things intocategories, and we organize
them in our own way to makesense out of complexity.
I do it when I'm putting awaymy dinner dishes, for example.

(02:10):
I separate the platesfrom the bowls, and the
bowls from the silverware.
Then I put the big bowlsthere, and I put the
small bowls up in thatcabinet, and the silverware
I sort into bins, andthe silverware drawers,
knives, forks, and spoons.
I'll bet you do this too.
So, Carl Linnaeus created asystem of classifying, like

(02:33):
what we're talking abouthere, classifying specific,
unique kinds of living things.
What we call a species isa unique kind of living
thing, so naming them withLatin scientific names.
In this system ofclassification and grouping,
known as taxonomy, Wason display one day when I

(02:58):
visited Central WashingtonUniversity in Washington
State of the USA.
We're here in thebiological collections.
It's organized bytype of organism.
So, for example, over herewe have lizards and reptiles.
We have pretty much animalsfrom every single phylum.
As many as we can foreach of our different

(03:19):
fields of biology.
Then we looked through acollection of preserved
plants mounted on paper.
For Here's an exampleof a preserved specimen.
You'll see that it hasthe scientific name, the
common name, and it's alsoreally important to provide
location information sothat you know where the
specimen was collected from.

(03:40):
It also shows who it wascollected by, the number,
the date it was collected.
So, let's see, that's,would you say Gilea or
Gilea, do you think?
Not sure.
Gilea agregata, somethingas an aggregate, maybe?
The next thing on that plantcard said Scarlet Gilea, which
is the English common name.

(04:02):
What should come afterthat is who named it.
Perch Spring.
Perch Spring?
I wonder if I can find onein here that I've heard of.
Something Pursh.
Spreng..
I've since learned that Pursh.
Spreng.
Refers to the two botanistswho named this plant who
were involved in that,Frederick Pursh and Kurt

(04:22):
Polycarp Joachim Sprengel.
Because so many plants werein fact named by this fellow
named Linnaeus, The subjectof this podcast, scientists
simply abbreviate him as thenamer with just the letter
L that tells you something.

(04:43):
And you can see when they'representing specimens, they
try to include as many ofthe plants parts as possible.
So including the root, theleaves, the stem, the flowers.
It can really help youwhen you're trying to idea
a plant to have all ofthose parts to look at.
You may not realize it, butthe scientific name, Gilea
agregata, is recognizedthe world over as the

(05:04):
name of this one kindof plant, this species.
And that's, that'sastonishing, really,
that there's universalagreement on the name.
other animal and plantand fungus and protist
and bacteria andviral names as well.
And what's more is in knowingthe scientific name you know

(05:27):
a large amount about what itprobably looks like without
even seeing a picture of it.
So who was this fellowCarl Linnaeus he was
born 300 years ago in1707 in the town , Sweden.
His father was a Lutheranminister and an amateur
botanist, and he tookCarl on walks through the

(05:48):
garden naming the plants.
When Carl asked, and atsome point his father
became exasperated atCarl's constant request
for the names again, mostof which he had forgotten.
In the meantime.
And the father said, I'm notgoing to tell you the names of
the plants anymore unless youstart learning and actually

(06:10):
remember some of them.
And so Linnaeusredoubled his efforts.
In school, Linnaeus wasn'tmuch of a student, but his
parents enrolled him in aschool to become a priest,
but that didn't work out.
Linnaeus had a hardtime paying attention.
Linnaeus actually wanted tobecome a doctor, which, in
addition to treating sickpeople, meant that he had

(06:32):
to learn a large number ofherbs and plants as well.
Which, of course,was his forte.
At school, he attracted theattention of headmasters
and professors who werefond of botany and who
appreciated his interest.
And that led to introductionsto other scientists who gave
him access to their privatelibraries of biology books.

(06:55):
This is a big deal,because that's where the
information was those days.
Linnaeus was, uh, avery intense fellow.
Even at a young age, he'dspent hours tromping around
outside collecting plants andstayed up late into the wee
hours of the morning comparingplants and writing things

(07:16):
down and reading these books.
Other scientists havebeen thinking about ways
to name plants and howto group them together by
similarity in some way.
But what should be thebasis of how you call
two things similar?
Well, one idea was to groupplants, for example, based

(07:38):
on flower parts, numbersof petals, the pistils, the
number of stamens, basicallythe anatomy of the flower.
Now, speaking of anatomy,someone, uh, Sebastian
Valent especially, madeoutrageous comparisons

(08:00):
between flower parts, whichafter all were organs of
sexual reproduction, makingcomparisons between flower
parts and human anatomy.
and it caused quite astir, and the students who
studied plants and herbswho found this especially
exciting were usually medicalstudents because they were

(08:21):
the ones who were studyingherbs and plants that was so
essential to being able totreat ailments in the 1700s.
Well, Linnaeus enrolled inLund University to become a
physician himself, discoveringthat in fact his professors
didn't like to teach classes.

(08:42):
Now one professor named JohannRothman even asked Linnaeus
to teach his classes for himout in the botanical gardens.
And Linnaeus had readand studied and talked
to other botanists suchthat he was actually very
knowledgeable in plantsand a very popular teacher.
He'd often attract crowdsof upwards of 300 students

(09:05):
at a time, crowding aroundthe garden, listening and
hanging on his every word.
And the irony of itis, Linnaeus, while at
Lund University, neverattended a single lecture.
Well, there weren't a lotgiven in the medical school,
but he never went to class.
He learned almosteverything by talking to

(09:26):
others and reading andcomparing on his own.
Well, he got a grant in 1732to travel to the northernmost
regions of Sweden in sme,what we call now, it was
called Lapland, then tostudy the flora and fauna,
plants and animals there.
This resulted in his bookone, his first books in 1737,

(09:49):
flora Leica, the Flowersof Lapland, describing
some 500 plants in Laplandthat were largely unknown.
In this book are some ofthe early ideas he had about
how to group these thingstogether and classify them.
Well, when he came backfrom Sapmi, he soon decided

(10:12):
he was interested in thiswoman, uh, getting her hand
in marriage, and he showsup on her doorstep wearing
this lappish costume, thisassemblage of a, of a tam o'
shanter-like hat, and a guck.
Curled toed shoesand a shaman's drum.
But he was so fond of thisthat he had a painting

(10:34):
done wearing these clothes.
You can look it up.
I'll put it on thewebsite for this episode.
He proposed that to thiswoman, but he was told by
her parents that he had tofinish his doctor's degree
first, his physician'sdegree, showing that he

(10:55):
could support their daughter,who was named Sarah Morea.
Well, apparently she didn'tlaugh at his mismatched
Sami outfit as he eventuallywas able to marry her.
And in fact, theyhad seven children.
Linnaeus had to leave Swedenin order to finish his
education as a physician,because actually, although

(11:18):
they had medical classes,no institution in Sweden
granted physician's degrees.
So he headed south in 1757 andstopped in Hamburg, Germany
to see the mayor of that city.
So he's headed south to finishhis physician's degree and he

(11:38):
Does this side trip to Hamburgbecause he heard that there
was this taxidermied remainsof a seven headed hydra and
the mayor said this was, youknow, a wonder of nature and,
uh, quite the critter andhe obviously expected that
he was going to sell thisfrom for some enormous sum.

(12:03):
Now, this hydra we're talkingabout is not the tiny animal,
the water based hydra thatwe talk about today, barely
visible to the naked eye.
I studied that in zoology.
It's kinda cute.
This one I'm talking aboutwas the terrifying Greek hydra
of mythology, a multi headedpoisonous serpent, a reptile

(12:28):
that lived in the marshesof Lerna and terrorized the
people and ate the livestock.
And it allegedlyhad nine heads.
Well, this specimen didhave nine heads, and sharp
little teeth, and claws, andthe skin that sure looked
like it was from a reptile.

(12:49):
Well, you and I both knowLinnaeus was exactly the
wrong person to inviteto view this reptile.
He quickly decided thespecimen was a fake.
cobbled together from theteeth and paws of weasels
and the skins of snakes,both of which he had
studied back in Sweden.

(13:11):
Unfortunately, Linnaeuswasn't very tactful, and he
made his conclusions publicas soon as he walked out.
And naturally, withinhours, the value of
the mayor's rare hydraspecimen dropped to zero.
Linnaeus and his friend, whoaccompanied him, they were
forced to flee Hamburg fortheir lives before the mayor

(13:33):
could catch a hold of them.
He was not happy.
Well, Linnaeus did earnhis physician's degree
at Harderwijk Universityin the Netherlands.
He visited and helped otherscientists, mostly attracted
their attention and they lethim stay with them and they
fed him meals every day.
He offered to organize theircollection and help them write

(13:56):
their books, and he ends upat the estate of one George
Clifford III, a very wealthygentleman, a director of the
Dutch East India Company.
He owned this rich, amazingbotanical garden at the
estate called Hartekamp,which is still there in

(14:18):
the town of Heemstede.
Clifford was Really impressedwhen he met Linnaeus.
Linnaeus was a very confident,self promoting type of guy
and talked a lot about hisachievements and Clifford
was impressed, especially hisability to classify plants.

(14:38):
So he invites him to becomesuperintendent of his garden.
and his personal physician.
After all, hewas now a doctor.
Well, unfortunately, atthat time, Linnaeus had
already agreed to workfor another scientist
botanist named JohannesBormann for several months.

(15:00):
He was obligated to bethere, and he couldn't
really say yes to Clifford.
And Bormann really didnot appreciate having
Clifford undermine his owncontract with Linnaeus.
No, no, I had priorclaim on this, this guy.
However, Cliffordhad a copy of a book.

(15:21):
Remember books, which werevery rare, especially science
books, um, were very special.
He had a copy of a bookabout Jamaican botany
that Berman really wanted.
And so Clifford offeredhis book to Berman if
Berman released Linnaeusso he could instead move

(15:41):
in with Clifford, and infact the trade was made.
And so a month later in 1735,Linnaeus moved to Hardecamp
in Heemstede, Netherlands tobecome Clifford's personal
physician, but also tobecome curator of Clifford's
herbarium, and in fact, thegardens that Clifford had

(16:03):
were He also had a smallpersonal zoo and perhaps
what's most interestingwere the greenhouses.
Well first I'll mentionthat he, he got a salary,
he got meals, lodging.
He was supposed to stayfor the winter, he stayed

(16:23):
there for three years.
And Linnaeus publisheda book describing all of
the plants that Cliffordhad at his estate.
He called it the HortusCliffortianus, detailing
all these plants onthis huge estate.
And most fascinating, asI mentioned to Linnaeus,
were these greenhouses, orhothouses, or what they called

(16:46):
the houses of Adonis backthen, or, or, Orange area,
places to grow orange trees.
Now specifically, Cliffordhad a banana plant.
Which had yet to bearfruit and Linnaeus rubbed
his hands together.
And he said, Clifford, Mr.
Clifford, I will make it.

(17:07):
So you have the firstbanana grown here in Europe.
Now you got to rememberbananas and oranges, any
of these fruits were.
exotic fruits, right?
They didn't growin, in Europe.
They're from tropicalareas and things like that.
And bananas were thereforea luxury food that only

(17:28):
the wealthy could afford.
So if Clifford couldachieve growing the first
banana in Europe, he wouldbecome quite the celebrity.
And he'd have Bragging rightsfor owning the first fruiting
banana plant in Europe.
Well, Linnaeus worked withthe head gardener, trying

(17:49):
to figure out if it hadn'thadn't fruited so far,
what can we do to make thisplant Absolutely happy.
Like where it'ssupposed to be from.
Supposedly, maybe originated,we think banana plants
originated in, uh, Malaysia.
Maybe, uh, Java.
In fact, uh, they callthe banana tree a pisang,

(18:12):
which I understand is aJavanese name for bananas.
So, he investigated whatwould be the perfect
temperature, what would bethe perfect humidity, and
the soil for this bananaplant, and then they tried
to figure out the rightamount of water it should
get, and should it, shouldyou keep it dry for a while,

(18:33):
and then suddenly delugeit with water, like there's
a monsoon or something?
Well, in fact, they gotthis plant to flower,
and it grew bananas in1736, the first banana
Now, banana plants thatproduce what you and I might
call dessert bananas, whatwe find in the grocery store,

(18:57):
really rather puzzling toLinnaeus because they don't
have any viable seeds.
If you open up a banana, youknow, a sweet dessert banana,
You might see some little tinyblack dots, but the bananas,
uh, of those trees have beenbred and bred and bred not
to have large seeds becausethey're not particularly

(19:17):
fun to eat when you'reeating a dessert banana.
Yeah, peel a bananayourself and have a look.
They're absolutelytiny and they're
incapable of sprouting.
So that brings up thequestion, as Linnaeus
was standing therescratching his head, how
do bananas reproduce?
Remember, he knew all aboutsexual reproduction and how

(19:39):
flowers, pollen, fertilized,uh, Eggs in the ovaries
of plants and that grewinto fruits and then the
fruits became the thingsthat had seeds in them that
could grow a new plant.
But bananas, especiallythese bananas, didn't
propagate that way.

(20:00):
And so I wonderedabout this too.
Well, in order to understandwhat a banana tree was
like, I've, I've never seenone, I learned that a local
university had one, actuallyseveral banana trees, I'll
call them banana trees,they are not technically
trees, in their greenhousesin Ellensburg, Washington.

(20:24):
This is CentralWashington University.
Naturally, I askedabout getting a tour
of the greenhouses, andthere I did in fact see
my first banana tree.
Well, I soon learnedthat greenhouses are very
noisy places, or can be.
So, uh, I apologize for thesound here, it's hard to hear

(20:48):
the tour guide in some places.
Hi, I'm Linnea Stadney andwe're here on the Central
Washington campus, um,to look at some of the
plants that we have herein the greenhouse today.
We're going to go ahead andlook at some of the bananas
that we have and a few of theother exotic plants that we
keep here on campus throughthe biology department.

(21:09):
I'm walking under thesebig banana leaves.
Whoa.
That are longerthan I am tall.
Man, those are huge.
This last room is supposedto be kind of a jungle.
Say, is the soilanything special that the
bananas are planted in?
Not really.
They actually, in thisroom, the dirt just
goes down to the ground.
So, their roots are goingto be tapping into the

(21:31):
natural Ellensburg soil.
But I do believein this greenhouse.
That's his first mandate.
Put in special soil booths.
Construct a greenhouse.
I think in the 70s.
So any nutrients thatwere originally there
are gone, but we dofertilize in these rooms.
Tell me about whatyou got there.
So this is ourlittle temperature
and humidity reader.

(21:52):
You can see it's about70 degrees in here and 52
percent humidity in here.
Which is pretty typical.
We keep each of our rooms atdifferent temperatures and
humidities depending on theplants we're growing in there.
The desert room is goingto stay a little bit hotter
than the jungle rooms.
It can go up to 115degrees and the plants

(22:14):
are totally fine.
So what's optimum for thebananas, do you think, or
whatever else is in this room?
They, all of these plantsare tropical jungle plants.
So they're gonna like higherhumidity, like about 50
percent or above and moremoderate temperatures.
So definitely not freezing,but not quite as hot
as the desert room.

(22:35):
Moderate.
I think it'll be easierfor you to see if you
come over here andit's a little bit wet.
Holy, look at that thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So here we have a banana tree.
You can see right here, theseare the bananas forming.
And then if you follow thisdown to the bottom, you'll
see these are flowers.
So each one of these petallike structures sort of end

(22:58):
up peeling up as it matures.
And it's hiding rowsof flowers underneath.
Awesome.
Cultures actually usethese leaves as plates.
People use banana leaves forcooking or steaming things.
But these are thethe flowers here.
I'm going to peel to see if wecan find some fresher flowers.

(23:21):
You can see all ofthem lined up in there.
Let's see if we canopen one up to look at
the structure inside.
There's the pistil,or the female part of
the flower right here.
That would collect the pollen.
So that's the onein the middle?
Yes, the yellow, longbranch in the middle.
Surrounded by pollen.

(23:42):
Yellowish pink petalsand then up here where
the plant has matured.
So there's notstamens in that.
It's there somewhere else.
We can take this apartat home, figure it out.
Right.
But yes, up hereare the fruits.
This is a differentvariety of banana that you
might get in the store.
So it's not going to makethose big yellow bananas

(24:03):
that you're used to.
But I'll go ahead andpick one of them off here.
So, they're about 10centimeters long, curved,
and they curve up.
Yes, they're curved up.
So, it's kind of theopposite of how you might
imagine them from the store.

(24:24):
And actually, a lot ofmonkeys will peel them
from the bottom, insteadof the stem part that
humans peel them from.
So, I just opened one uphere, and it smells amazing.
Just like a superunripe, green banana.
Yes, it does.
So I'm gonna peel it,and you can see the
white flesh inside.
This banana is about thethickness of my finger.

(24:46):
It's very tough.
It's not soft andpliable, like the ones
you'd want to eat.
But you can kind of see theremnants here of where the
seeds would have been, right?
Right?
Not, uh, exactly inthe center, but kind of
surrounding the center.
Makes me think of a cucumber.
Yeah, it smells like one too.
Yeah.
So, if you look over here,you can see, this is a

(25:10):
younger banana growingup from this mature one
that's already fruited.
Uh huh.
So, bananas don't haveseeds in the middle, at
least the ones that webuy in the grocery store.
They were bred or selectedby humans to not have seeds
in them, simply because it'snot as fun to bite into a
banana if it had seeds in it.
So over time, they'vebeen grown to not have

(25:31):
any seeds inside, butthen there's a problem.
How do we grow more bananas?
bananas if there'sno seeds to plant.
Well, they found thatbananas not only reproduce
by seed, but they alsomake these runners or
these younger plants thatgrow up from the rhizomes.
A rhizome is kind of likea root structure that you
look down at the base here.

(25:51):
You'll see that thesetwo plants are actually
connected underground.
So this is the matureplant on the left, and
then on the right youhave this smaller plant
that's about the diameterof, um, a silver dollar.
But this, this largerplant is about the
diameter of a cereal bowl.
So this one's a lot smaller,and it's a lot shorter,
but eventually it'llgrow to be the same size.

(26:14):
It has this onethat's fruiting here.
And once it's fruited, youactually have to cut it down
because it'll start dying.
It can only produce bananasonce before it dies and
then we have to make roomfor a younger one to grow
up and take its place.
Of course.
Thanks for visitingthe greenhouse.
Um, every Fridayfrom 1 to 3 p.
m.
we have our open house.

(26:36):
Sorry that wasa little abrupt.
She told me that everyFriday from 1 to 3 p.
m.
they have an open houseand you can visit the
greenhouses at CentralWashington University in
Ellensburg, Washington.
Well, I don't know about you,but I found it fascinating
standing there in a greenhousejust as Linnaeus did,

(26:56):
looking at a banana plantand trying to understand
it and see how it grew.
And I thought you mighthave enjoyed coming
along for that trip.
Now a word from twoshows I like to plug.
One is Living a Nordic Life.
It's a podcast and a blogrun by Fiona McKenna.

(27:19):
Recently I was asked totalk about folktales.
her program.
And so you can go andlisten to that podcast along
with, uh, several otherinteresting ones about being
Nordic and living in thefashion that Nordics do.
Second is a music showfor some good Nordic music

(27:40):
to brighten your day.
I recommend getting onlinewith the Scandinavian hour.
org 6am.
Saturdays.
And Sundays and again at 9 a.
m.
On Saturdays, streamingto you on Pacific time.
And as you may know, streamingprograms are delivered
to you live as it were.

(28:01):
So you, you don'twant to miss it.
As soon as the show'sover, you can't go
back and hear it again.
My friend, Seth Tuftelandat the Scandinavian hour
spins a huge variety ofsongs, mostly in some.
Nordic language, occasionallyEnglish or other, from
jazz to pop to dancesongs, fiddle tunes, choral
numbers, marching bandmusic, it's all there.

(28:25):
So what was going on inthe world in the early to
mid 1700s when Linnaeuswas studying living things
and assigning them names?
To better appreciatethe life and times of
Linnaeus, I've asked Dr.
Tamara Calkins, an adjunctprofessor at Central
Washington State Universityin the USA, the same

(28:49):
university we've been talkingabout here, to join me.
Dr.
Calkins, could youtell us a little bit
about your expertise?
I'm a historian of science.
I study mostly 18th centuryFrance and the Atlantic
world, but I've looked at alot of histories of science

(29:10):
and thinking a lot aboutwhat is knowledge, how do
we know, how can we trustscience, which I think is
a really important thing tobe considering these days.
Let's try to contextualize.
The development ofscience, certainly in
terms of colonialization.

(29:30):
whose knowledge isacknowledged and whose
knowledge is visibilized.
We began talking aboutthe thermometer Linnaeus
used in the greenhouse.
The instrument was inventedby Galileo about 170
years previously to thattime, but Anders Celsius
was the first to come upwith the Celsius scale.

(29:51):
I don't rememberwhether Andreas, is
it Andreas Celsius?
Yes.
Andreas flipped the scale.
He had it set up initiallyso that zero was boiling
and a hundred was freezing.
And Linnaeus flips thataround and that's of course
what we're using today,the Linnaeus thermometer.

(30:12):
But the interesting thingto me is I think he was
most interested in inventingthat thermometer so that he
could regulate the growthof plants in a greenhouse.
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
He does a lot with greenhousesthat I think is, has
not been fully explored.
For example, he figuresout that a banana tree

(30:35):
in the tropics is goingto be really dry for like
months, so he doesn'twater this banana tree.
And then suddenly delugesit with lots of water
and he gets bananas.
Well, it is because he,no one could get a banana
tree to fruit in Europe.
Right.
I mean, it waslike this big deal.
Wow.

(30:56):
I could just say, okay,it's monsoon time.
Yes.
Yeah, that's really good.
And I guess they changed thesoil to my understanding.
They tried to improve that.
Yeah.
So all of those experimentsthey're doing in greenhouses,
trying to grow the Amazonia,Regina, the huge water

(31:18):
lily with the spinesunderneath, what, so ghastly,
they're just so dangerous.
Figuring out how to dothat, it doesn't happen
until the 19th century,but Linnaeus is already
there in the greenhousewith his patron, George
Clifford Booker, I thinkthat's really one of his.
Most important publicationsis the one that you did

(31:40):
for Clifford's Garden.
The Hortus Cliffordianaor something like that.
Yes.
Yeah.
Everything has to be in Latin.
What the heck?
It's not goingto be in Swedish.
Well, and the person thatI'm most studying, Michelle
Adolson, the French Thefirst French naturalist

(32:00):
who really goes to Africajust to study natural
history, so plants, animals.
He learns Wolof in Senegal,really enjoys the language,
enjoys the people, andhe names many of his
plants in those African,with an African name.
Their gosh, original name.

(32:21):
People did already know aboutthe baobab tree, but Linnaeus
is like, Oh, no, nobodycan pronounce those names.
This is ridiculous.
Puts everything in Latin.
Well, and yet you shouldaccept those because they
were first named by somebody.
Rule of priority, right?
Yes.
And it's not like theydidn't know if you go back
to the archives, thesenames are all in there.

(32:44):
Their people are learningthe Maori language.
They're learning whateverit is they speak in Tahiti.
And it's a process by whichthose names get erased.
And it's been a process to beintroducing Indigenous names.
So one of the biographiesI like is by Wilford Blunt.

(33:07):
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
This ridiculous Sami costume.
Yeah.
You can show the,the picture of that.
This is interestingbecause he's wearing
this iconic Sami outfit.
And it's actuallythe woman's house.
Oh, I know.
It's so interesting.
He shows up on this,the gal's doorstep and

(33:29):
proposes in this thing.
It's like, what?
Yeah, but traveling, Imean, it makes you famous.
But of course he's alsovery smart and sends out
his student because it'salso really dangerous.
I bring this up becauseStearns, who did the
introduction early 1900s whenhe did that, so this is an

(33:51):
older book, in talking aboutLinnaeus, he said, yes, his
goal was to create a way toidentify every known living
thing and perhaps have asystem then for things that
are yet to be discovered.
I'm going to read it.
He lived at a time.
Possibly the very lasttime when one person could
accomplish this singlehandedly, provided he was

(34:14):
willing to pay the price andLinnaeus was financially,
we'll use his term, insecure,a lot of his life, and he
overworked himself like crazy.
It's really interestingbecause I think of any one
person coming up with aclassification system that
would stick these days.
No way.

(34:34):
I think, as I said, he hada lot of what he called
apostles who he sentout, but he's building
on their work heavily.
Maybe that's part of the18th century, the self
fashioning because hisnemesis, who I'll talk about
a little bit more, alsobuilt on the work of others.

(34:55):
And yet, Georges LouisLeclerc, the Comte of
Buffon, the Count ofBuffon, but, but Also,
just that borrows heavily.
So it's just an encyclopedicproject that I hadn't
actually blunt calledLinnaeus as an encyclopedist.
And I hadn't reallythought of him that
way because he doesn'texpand on his articles.

(35:16):
He condenses.
The beauty of what Linnaeusdoes is instead of having
these mile long names forthings, they have two names.
That's what binomialnamed with two, two parts.
And he realizes that thisis an artificial system.
It doesn't really reflectnature and he's hoping to

(35:39):
find something that reflectsnature, but he insists
on it and he manages tocajole, invite, convince.
I mean, he talks to allthese people, he has this
huge correspondence network.
My sense, as I'm reading, isthat he was very friendly.

(36:02):
And he managed to win people,he was charming, he managed
to win people to his side.
And I think that's, that'sa, boy, what a skill.
That's how science issupposed to go, right?
We stand on theshoulders of giants.
Yes.
So I can see why that wouldbe more accepted than, in

(36:22):
fact, I don't even think heinvented a genus and species.
It was already asystem in place, but it
wasn't as condensed andclearly and beautifully
presented as he does.
And he presents itgraphically too.
I see here the diagramsare coming back.
In these tables thatare very easy to see.
I've got a flower diagram.

(36:43):
I remember seeing those.
Here's the big boxes andsmaller boxes and smaller
boxes and that hierarchy.
The way Linnaeus wouldput it, he would certainly
put his name first, buthe would be very kind.
Apostles who are outthere risking their lives.
They trusted him.
I did.

(37:03):
And even people who weren'tnecessarily apostles
found something whichsent them to him, right?
He was the definitivethat goes in that box
or that box, right?
Now, I've heard that heoriginally did more than just
genus species when he wasdescribing things or when he
found things and saw me that,but it was the students that

(37:25):
went the bleep with this.
I'm not going towrite 20 words.
Well, I found a dandelion.
And it is.
Oh, that's interesting.
Heard they, there's,it's a back and forth.
Like his students arealso saying, bin no meal.
That's it.
That's what you get andthere's no confusion.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Yeah.

(37:45):
That's kind of thing.
Yeah.
And his parents wantedhim to be a clergyman.
Yes.
And he justcouldn't sit still.
She obviously did learn Latin.
Um, it's the languageof educated people.
English is much more used inscience than Latin ever was.
And there's just.
More people using it, whichI think is quite interesting.

(38:08):
Anyway, Latin.
So he insists on usingLatin for his plant.
And he also collaborates andthis beautiful chart just
showing all the differentplant leaves, plant shapes
of leaves, the natural worldin a very clear sort of way.
And I love it that rightthere in the middle he

(38:29):
has paradoxa, right?
And there's some thingsthat we don't know.
Leave them a square.
We'll leave them some space.
He also, when he classifieshumans, there's Homo sapiens,
Homo americus, Homo asiana.
And then there's homotroglodyte, who is mute
and lives in caves.

(38:49):
So, there are, yes.
But even linking us to greatapes is a big deal back then.
Contentious, maybe not asmuch as Not as contentious,
perhaps, until we get to,when we get to Darwin.
And I wanted to give youa description of plant

(39:14):
name that he simplifies.
Plantago follis, thatkids have all seen.
Plantago follis ovato,lancelotus, pubicentipus,
spica, cylindrica,scapo, terreti.
That's the name forthis poor little weed.
Linnea says, nope.
Plantago media.

(39:36):
That's it.
We're going tojust call it that.
Peace.
And everybody'slike, Oh, hooray.
Well, thank you, Dr.
Calkins for talkingwith us about science,
Linnaeus, history,Dubuffon, all of that.
This has been super fun.
Thank you so muchfor inviting.

(39:57):
to your show.
Great to talk.
In May 1738, Linnaeusreturned to Sweden.
He ended up getting appointedprofessor of medicine
at Uppsala University.
He eventually becameresponsible for the botanical
garden, which he thoroughlyreconstructed and expanded.

(40:18):
One asks, what wasLinnaeus really like?
Well.
He certainly couldbe very charming.
He charmed the socks off lotsof people and got to live
with them and they fed himand they lodged him and paid
him money to do what he did.
Very charming andvery convincing.

(40:40):
And he was obviouslya workaholic.
One biographer I read calledhim a shameless self promoter.
He was not lacking inconfidence, and yet he was
very sensitive to criticism.
For example, he wasso disgusted with one
of his critics thathe named a terrible

(41:02):
smelling weed after him.
I don't think that namehas survived, but that's
an example of his, uh,linguistic vindictiveness.
Perhaps Charles Ambrose ofthe University of Kentucky
summarized Linnaeus best.
He said, Linnaeus was acomplex person, alternately

(41:27):
rude and charming, Ambitious,self promoting, opinionated,
vain, and covetous ofhonors and respect.
Well, Linnaeus was not verywell in his last years.
He had sciatica, he hadseveral strokes that paralyzed
part of him, and he endedup passing away in 1778.

(41:51):
So, you might havenoticed that my
daughter's name is Linnea.
She's the one with the rockcollection at the beginning,
who, to her father'seternal delight, grew up to
become a biology educatorand gave me the tour of
the university greenhouseat Central Washington
University, where she in factis the greenhouse manager.

(42:15):
Linnea is the commonname of a Swedish named
Linnaeus borealis.
This little plant, we call ittwin flower in North America,
was Linnaeus favorite plant.
It grows all over in Sweden,especially higher elevations.

(42:37):
In Sweden, it's just calledLinnaea or Linnaea flower.
Now, I have to also confessthat we named our son Carl.
We have one son, one daughter.
Even though we told everybodythat we took Carl and
Linnea from names of ourrelatives and we're, you
know, kind of honoring ourrelatives like a lot of
people do, we definitelythought of Carolus Linnaeus

(43:00):
when naming our children.
And my biology friends alwaysdo a facepalm when I tell
them my children's name.
You know, sort of,you've got to be kidding.
No!
But it's really beenfun researching and
finding out who the Kingof Flowers really was.
And I find special joy inwalking straight to the

(43:22):
Linnaeus exhibit at theNational Nordic Museum in
Seattle whenever I visit.
And I revel in theirreproduction of Linnaeus plant
mount, of Linnaeus Borealis.
It's very cleverly done.
It's not the realthing, but it looks
like a, a pressed plant.
And, uh, it, itjust makes me smile.

(43:46):
I used Wikipedia on Linnaeus.
I used a nicely argued articlethat I recommend called
Taxonomy, What's in a Name?
Doesn't a Rose by Any OtherName Smell as Sweet, long
title, by Charles Kalischer.
I also read a biography byWilford Blunt, A very well

(44:08):
known one called Linnaeus,the Complete Naturalist.
And another one by KarenMagnuson Beale, What Linnaeus
Saw, A Scientist's Questto Name Every Living Thing.
There are many otherexcellent books and
articles, some publishedway more recently than these
I've been talking about.

(44:30):
Some great essays on Linnaeus,uh, on university websites.
While talking to Dr.
Tamara Calkins, I discoveredthat she is half of a
classic guitar duo withher husband, Neil Calkins.
Calkins, C A U L K I N S.
They've recorded works.

(44:51):
by Benignia Henry, a Frenchcomposer from around 1818.
And although Henry wrote musicnearly 50 years after the time
of Linnaeus, let's pretendthat the dance music used in
formal balls and occasionsfor royalty, let's pretend

(45:13):
this was something thatthey had back in his time.
I'll play part of theselection from the Kalkins CD.
It's called the Grand March.
This is the Allegretto No.
2 movement and theAndante movements.
I'll put them together.
What a lot of fun.
Special thanks, of course,to Tamara Calkins and her

(45:36):
husband, to Linnaeus Daphne.
I'll put links to theirwebsites on our episode
website for Linnaeus.
Plus, you should checkout a link I'll put on to
a virtual reality video.
of in the greenhouse andyou can actually look
around with your mouse oryour finger and look around

(45:58):
and look up and look down.
It's, VR is reallycool, I think.
Uh, and then there's another,another video I'll link to,
uh, that talks about a largetortoise that lives in the
greenhouses named Snorkel.
Thank you for listeningto our podcast today.
Please click the like buttonif you enjoy your show on your

(46:21):
favorite podcast platform, oran email is always welcome.
I'll answer youback personally.
It's nordicontap, allone word, at gmail.
com.
Our intro music is Ingela'sWaltz, played by composer
Morten Alfred Heurupand Ruthie Dornfeld.

(46:43):
They both have websites.
And the outgoing music,also there's a website, is
written by and performedby Daryl Jackson.
And so from me, EricStavny, Vi sees neste gang.
We'll be seeing youon NordicOnTap.[
ending music plays]