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. 

A painting of Carl Linnaeus wearing his mismatched Sami outfit he bought on his trip to “Lappland” (Sapmi). Some say his gakti shirt, his hat, shaman’s drum, and curled-toed shoes (which are very practical to Sami) would never be worn in that combination by a Sami man in the 1700s. Nevertheless, he commissioned this painting, holding his favorite flower, Linneaus borealis.

The photo shows a painting by Hendrik Hollander (1853) in vibrant colors, a copy of the original by Martin Hoffman (1737). Hoffman’s painting was also copied as an etching mezzotint by H. Kingbury (see full length picture). Hoffman’s painting was made while Linneaus was at Hartecamp with George Clifford III. All of these images are on Wikipedia.

When Linneaus was honored by the Swedish King and given a title as a nobleman, he changed his name to Carl von Linné. Linnaeus also was knighted by the king as a member of the Order of the Polar Star, the first civilian (non-military or politician) granted a knighthood in Sweden. The artist is unknown. The date was probably around 1770, some 30-40 years after his “Sami portrait”. Linneaus died in 1778.

Notice that Linneaus must have insisted that his Linnea flower be included. From Wikimedia Commons/Welcome Images

An etching of the ferocious stuffed “hydra” of Greek mythology which Linnaeus examined in Hamburg, Germany in 1735. The mayor of Hamburg hoped to sell this rare specimen for a fortune. This is a copperplate engraving published in Richard Massey’s Seba’s Thesaurus (1734). Colors added by myself. From Wikipedia.

Daniel Belteki explores the origins of this stuffed hydra in a blog article, “Redacting the Hamburg hydra“.

Linnaeus worked on his “Systeme Naturae” throughout his life, as his classification system became more solid. This was his ‘magnum opus’. This image is of the last, 10th Edition of “Systeme Naturae”, from 1760 (see the MDCCLX in the lower right corner). From Picryl public domain media.

“Flora Lapponica”, one of Linneaus’ first books, published (1737) after his trip to Sapmi (Lappland). In it he describes some 500 species from northern Sweden, many of which were unknown to those farther south. From Wikipedia.

Detail from Musa Cliffortiana (the “Bananas of Clifford”) published in 1736, no doubt with financial backing from George Clifford III at the Hartekamp estate, Heemstede, Netherlands. Compare this amazingly detailed drawing of the peduncle stalk and the bananas forming from the female flowers (see the one flower inside the dark casing (sepals?) near the bottom center. In the banana plant I saw, the bud at the end was heavy and tended to pull the stalk down. My research says this was drawn and engraved by Martin Hoffman, the fellow who painted Linnaeus in his Sami costume. You can still by reprints of this book. From Wikipedia.

Georg Ehret’s famous flower diagram (Methodus Plantarum Sexualis) created in 1736 from the Linnaean classification system using flower parts. This appeared in “Systeme Naturae” . Although Ehret dissected all the flowers himself and drew and painted them so precisely, he was not credited as the artist in “Systeme Naturae”. While this was typical in the 1700s not to name the artist, Ehret felt he should have been at least mentioned. Yet Ehret became famous anyway as the fellow who made the Linnean chart of flowers. He is said to be one of the best or most influential botanical illustrators ever. From Picryl public domain media.

Dr. Tamara Caulkins has a website describing who she is, a list of her publications, teaching, and curriculm vitae (academic resume).  She is interested in science history, but also the history we are making now. This includes environmental history, like the history of climate science. She is also a classical guitarist with her husband Neil. In this podcast, we play two cuts from their CD, The Grand March.

There’s a Facebook video about Snorkel the African spurred (sulcata) tortoise (Centrochelys sulcata) who roams the the three greenhouses at Central Washington University. My daughter, Linnea Stavney is interviewed as the Greenhouse Manager and tortoise-keeper. Produced by CWU Central News Watch. There’s also a nice news article from the Central Washington Observer.

If you have the virtual reality app and/or Youtube you can view the “360 Greenhouse”  You may need the YouTube app or a desktop computer to get the virtual reality function. Otherwise the video is a lovely series of wide angle and panoramic shots of the greenhouses, set to music. Produced by Central Washington University.

Banana tree or plant? The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant. All the above-ground parts of a banana plant grow from a structure called a corm. Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy with a treelike appearance, but what appears to be a trunk is actually a pseudostem composed of multiple leaf-stalks or petioles. (Wikipedia). In our tour of the greenhouse we looked at the peduncle stalk containing “fingers” of bananas that develop from flowers appearing near the end of the stalk (the bud). The rhizome, called a “pup” or sucker in the banana industry, is what is removed and planted to grow a new banana tree. This illustration was by Georg Ehret and annotated by me.

A closeup of the terminal bud (photo at the left) whose bracts that fall off, revealing bunches of female flowers. These fruit enlarges in the ovary of these flowers. This image is by M.P. Armstrong found in the slide deck on banana breeding (Slideshare).

Eric rants a bit about naming species after people

Linnaeus named several species in honor of people he admired. But, in my opinion, doing this was in conflict with the the intent of his own of his taxonomic system. Taxonomic names should be descriptive of organisms in that taxon. After all, the goal of biological taxonomy is not just to put things into groups by similarity, but also to help all of us grasp the evolutionary relationships of living things. 

A humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa courtesy of Picryl (public domain). Gotta love those lips.

Sometimes the concept of “species” as a kind of living thing is confused with an individual living thing. For example, my friend Peter Lortz’s family were snorkeling in Hawaii when father and son spotted a humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa (or “reef triggerfish”), the state fish of Hawaii. Dad explained to his son (after they surfaced) that they had just seen the state fish. A day later, they snorkeled on the other side of Maui, and again saw a humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻ. The son asked, “If that’s the state fish of Hawaii, how did he manage to swim all the way over here?”

Twinflower, Cascade Mountains, Washington, USA (photo by Linnea Stavney).

Herbarium mount from Poznań University in Poland, made by Barbara Thiem. Photo from Twinflower article on Researchgate. Common names for this plant are twinflower (USA), linnea or giktgräs (Sweden), nårislegras (Norway), linnæa (Denmark), vanamo (Finnish), zimoziół północny (Poland), among others.

Twinflower is a “creeping, evergreen herb, with trailing stems elongated and somewhat hairy and woody, from which arise numerous, erect, leafy, flowering stems up to 10 cm. long.” (Burke Museum Herbarium in Seattle). It occurs in open forests, heaths, and open dry slopes in the mountains across the northern hemisphere from Siberia to Sweden and across North America. The specific epithet borealis means “northern”, referring to the plants geographic distribution.

The flowers, as well as the leaves, arise from the stem in pairs, what I learned as “opposite phyllotaxy” in botany. L. borealis has a long tradition as a folk remedy in Scandinavia for skin diseases like rashes, eczema, measles, and scabies, and in treating rheumatism. In the USA, Pacific Northwest (native Americana) tribes have used the plant for food, treat headaches and colds.

The United States Forest Service has a lovely description of the plant and makes references Linnaeus. It’s interesting that Linneaus himself did not name the plant (despite the notation “L.” whenever the name is written). Jan Frederik Gronovious named it first in honor of Linnaeus.

As discussed in the podcast, a herbarium mount of a pressed flower (like that from an article on Researchgate to the left) shows the long creeping stem of twinflower with roots and flowers coming off of it. The identification/collection tag shows this is:

• In a herbarium at the Poznań University of Medical Sciences in Poland.
• The scientific name is Linnaea borealis, L. subspieces borealis
• It was named by “L.” (even though it actually was Jan Gronovious)
• The common name is zimoziół północny (which translates to English as “northern twinflower” ). Common names vary around the world, but Linnaeus borealis is constant.
• Collected and mounted by Barbara Thiem in 2016.