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he chose individual names which comprised the entire central cast of the Trojan War.2 Hector, Paris, Helen, Ulysses, Achilles, Nestor and all the other heroes flit about our forests
and gardens today. Papilio ulysses, the beautiful metallic-blue swallowtail butterfly of north Queensland, features on stamps and is the
tourist emblem of much of North Queensland including the islands
of the Great Barrier Reef. Linnaeus named this beautiful creature, Papilio Ulysses [sic], gave it the number 20
in the genus Papilio and defined
the species as that swallowtail with [translated from the Latin]: ‘Rounded wings of radiant blue, the hind wings dark with underneath eye spots in the septums, living in Asia.’3
To other creatures he assigned formal Latin names which he invented, or translated from those in local use in regions where the creatures were to be found. One stomb shell he called ‘the devil’ (Strombus Lucifer).4
It is fitting that those early pioneers
of biological classification – Aristotle, Cesalpino, Ray, Grew and Rivinus – should all have their ‘monuments more enduring than bronze’4 in the scientific name of plants and animals bestowed by scientists in the Linnean system.
Aristotle is commemorated in the genus Aristotelia,5 a genus of six species of which four are endemic to Australia.6 Linnaeus himself raised the new genus Caesalpinia (in the family Caesalpiniaceae) to honour Andrea Cesalpini (1519-1603) who besides serving as personal physician to the
Pope (Clement VIII) was the first to classify plants by the anatomical features of their flowers and seeds. His De Plantis Libri was published in 16 volumes. Today, ‘his’ genus Caesalpinia contains 100 species of which four occur in Australia.7,8
When Linnaeus died on 10 January 1788, it was recorded that:
‘Linnaeus died only physically; his spirit was kept alive by a multitude of followers at the world’s universities’.
His name is recorded in thousands of plants and animals that bear his name throughout the living world. Linnaeus chose one plant, a beautiful white snowdrop-like bell of the northern European woods, to be his own eponymic memorial. The plant, Linnaea, was described by him as:
‘A plant of Lappland, lowly, insignificant, disregarded, flowering but for a brief space, from Linnaeus who resembles it’.9
His humility, in which he saw himself as a tiny part of the ‘great and extensive works of God’ is a paradox in the context of his influence throughout the scientific world;
but a seemly and fitting paradox in which his towering contributions are acknowledged in this tercentenary month and year of his birth.
Acknowledgements
I thank Dr Ian McDougall, senior Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon of Southport, Queensland; Ms Belinda Wallis, Professor Richard Wootton, Mrs Lynne Packer and the Royal Children’s Hospital and Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation all for much encouragement.
References
1. Linnaeus Carl. Systema Naturae. 10th Edition. Holmiae, Laurentii Salvii, 1758. [A Photographic Facsimile of the First Volume of the Tenth Edition (1758). London, Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History), 1956]: 458-488.
2. Ibid: 459-462.
3. Ibid: 462.
4. Ibid: 744.
5. Pearn JH. A Doctor in the Garden.
Brisbane, Amphion Press, 2001. Aristotle
(384C-322 BC):44-5.
6. Baines JA. Aristotolia. In: Australian Plant
Genera. Sydney, Society for Growing
Australian Plants, 1981:47.
7. Ibid. Caesalpinia: 70.
8. Pearn JH. Op. Cit. See Ref. Professor
Andrea Cesalpini 1519-1603:113.
9. Cunningham, Michael. Deserving of Italics.
Hortus 2004;18:84-94.
The Author
Professor John Pearn is a Fellow of the Linnean Society (London) and one who has published books and papers on botany and the medical aspects of botanical medicine. He has been a senior paediatrician based at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane since 1969, with specialty interests in general paediatrics, medical genetics, accident prevention and toxinology. In a second career in military medicine, he has served on operational service in Papua New Guinea (1966), the Vietnam Campaign (1970) and as the Resuscitationist and Intensivist as part of the Forward Surgical Team in the United Nations Force which responded to the post-genocide disaster in Rwanda (East Africa) in 1994-95. As Major General John Pearn, he served for three years as the Surgeon General of the Australian Defence Force (1998-2000). He has particular interests in medical history and is the author of more than 20 books and 500 published papers in clinical medicine and medical history. One
of his major books, A Doctor in the Garden, highlighted the importance of Carl Linnaeus and his influence on all of biology throughout the past 250 years. Following an invited presentation, Medical Ethnobotany of Australia, delivered to the Linnaen Society in London in September 2004, he was presented with the Linnaen Society Tercentenary Wedgewood Medallion for his services to medicine and botany.
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volume 3 ■ no 32 ■ JULY 2007
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