CARL LINNAEUS'S ACQUAINTANCE WITH TROPICAL PLANTS

Abstract

SummaryCarl Linnaeus (1707–1778) made his first acquaintance with a tropical flora about 1744 when studying a large collection of herbarium specimens and drawings made in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) by Paul Hermann, and on these he based his Flora Zeylanica (1747). Otherwise, down to the publication of the Species plantarum (1753), his knowledge of tropical plants was based on a limited number in cultivation and on a large number of illustrations in the works of Kaempfer, van Rheede, J. and C. Commelin, Merian, Plumier, Petiver, Sloane, and Rumpfis, but relatively little on herbarium material. These works provide iconotypes for many 1753 Linnaean binomials. In 1758 Linnaeus bought Patrick Browne's Jamaican herbarium. He also received specimens from former students visiting tropical countries. Long before then European trading activities had dispersed some ruderal plants from port to port, making them almost pantropical. Collections often contained specimens of these. Hence Linnaeus tended to regard the tropical floras as rather uniform over the world instead of regionally very diverse. Nevertheless he devised a methodology and a nomenclature fundamental for the later development of tropical botany.