MEMORIALS OF LINN^US 



CARL LINNAEUS was born at Rashult, a small village 

 . in Smoland, Sweden, May 23, 1707. His father was 

 rector of a neighbouring parish. From his boyhood Linnaeus 

 showed a love for plants, but his literary studies made little 

 progress. In 1727 he entered the University of Lund, for the 

 study of medicine, but removed the next year to Upsala, 

 where, in 1730, he was put in charge of the botanic garden as 

 assistant to Professor Rudbeck. In 1732 he made a tour 

 through Lapland. In 1735 he went to Holland and obtained 

 his doctor's degree, and made the acquaintance of George 

 Clifford, a wealthy banker, who engaged Linnaeus to study and 

 superintend the large collection in his garden at Hartecamp. 

 The Hortus Cliffbrtianus (exhibited in the third case), an 

 account of the plants in Clifford's collection, appeared in 1737. 

 In Holland were published the Sy sterna Nature (1735) and 

 other works, including the Genera Plantarum (1737) and the 

 Classes Plantarum (1738). 



Linnaeus came to England in 1736, bringing a letter of 

 introduction (which is exhibited) from Boerhaave, Professor of 

 Botany at Leyden, to Sir Hans Sloane. He visited the Chelsea 

 Botanic Garden, then under the charge of Philip Miller, and 

 the Oxford Botanic Garden, where he spent some time with 

 Dillenius, the Professor of Botany. 



In 1738 he returned to Stockholm, and practised medicine 

 till, in 1741, he became Professor at Upsala, where he spent 

 the remainder of his life. In 1753 he published the Species 

 Plantarum^ from which dates the binominal system of plant 

 nomenclature ; a volume is exhibited in the second case. 

 Linnaeus died in 1778. 



On the right and left of the bay are two portraits of 



