246 GREENE 



man family lived, so those forebears of Linnaeus who, on rising to 

 the rank of gentr}", took the Greeco-Latin name Tiliander, chose 

 that improved appellation in allusion to an object in the land- 

 scape near their home. That object v^^as a remarkably large 

 and ancient linden tree ; a tree of special note all over that part 

 of the country. Tiliander, — Lind-tree-man ; or more in brief, 

 Linnman. In Swedish it would be Lindman. So these two 

 learned brothers who became the head of the Swedish family 

 of the Tilianders, chose a botanical name ; incidentally pres- 

 aging the botanical halo that was to glorify a future cion of 

 their stock under the same name somewhat altered. Now if 

 the name Tiliander was prophetic incidentally, it had not been 

 chosen accidentally. 



The Reverend Sven Tiliander, uncle and foster father of the 

 father of Linnasus, was a devoted lover of trees and plants. It 

 was that passion for botany which determined his taking the 

 new and classic-sounding family name from the great linden 

 tree. At the time of his taking his nephew Nils Ingemarsson 

 into his family to make of him if possible a scholar and a 

 Lutheran priest, he had extensive orchards and gardens to the 

 care and improvement of which he was enthusiastically devoted. 

 This enthusiasm for such things became contagious in the case 

 of his nephew Nils, insomuch that the boy found delight in 

 going with his uncle and helping him in orchard and garden. 

 Twenty years or so afterwards, when this nephew, now a 

 learned graduate and assistant minister of a parish, as the Rev- 

 erned Nils Linnteus — no longrer Nils Insfemarsson — he was 

 so deeply imbued with the love of the beautiful things of the 

 plant world, that he began the establishment of orchard and 

 gardens on the parish farm when his residence was established. 

 A word here as to his new name Linnaius, which had now dis- 

 placed that peasant's name Ingemarsson to which he had been 

 born. Reared and educated along with his first cousins the 

 Tiliander boys, it may be assumed the whole family may have 

 thought it better that, as scholar and gentleman, he should take 

 some other name than Tiliander. At all events, and quite as 

 if in grateful love of his uncle and cousins, he took a name pre- 

 cisely the equivalent of theirs — the name of Linnams. It is 



