trated three of these in his Amoenitatum Exvoticarum 
Fasciculi V (1712), the species now known as Dendrobium 
moniliforme, Vanilla domestica and Arachnis flos-aeris. 
Such was the state of knowledge of orchids at and 
after the birth of Carl Linnaeus in 1707. His career has 
been sketched in so many publications, notably B.D. 
Jackson, Linnaeus (afterwards Carl von Linné), the 
Story of his Life (1923), Kk. Hagberg, Carl Linnaeus 
(1952), N. Gourlie, The Prince of Botanists (19538), and 
W. Blunt and W.'T. Stearn, The Compleat Naturalist 
(1971), that a bare outline will suffice here. He was born 
in 1707 at Rashult, Skane, southern Sweden, entered 
the University of Lund in 1727, changed next year to 
the University of Uppsala, made an important journey 
to Lapland in 1782, left Sweden for Holland in 1785 and 
returned in 1788, having acquired a doctor’s degree at 
Harderwijk and published his Systema Naturae (1735), 
Fundamenta botanica (1736), Genera Plantarum (1787), 
Flora Lapponica (1737), Critica botanica (1737), Hortus 
Chffortianus (1788). He was appointed a professor at the 
University of Uppsala in 1741 and that year visited the 
Baltic islands of Oland and Gotland. His Species Plan- 
tarum, the starting point of modern botanical nomen- 
clature, appeared in 1758, and his Systema Naturae, 10th 
ed., vol. i, the starting point of modern zoological no- 
menclature, in 1758. He died at the age of 70 in 1778. 
On his journey to Lapland in 17382, Linnaeus became 
acquainted with seven species now known as Dactylo- 
rhiza maculata, Coeloglossum viride, Goodyera repens, 
Corallorhiza trifida, Listera cordata, Herminium mon- 
orchis and Cypripedium calceolus, admittedly but not sur- 
prisingly few, considering their remoteness from the 
tropics, and also atypical of this essentially tropical 
family. He knew Calypso bulbosa only from a coloured 
drawing made in Lapland by Rudbeck the Younger. 
[ 73 
