10 SCANDINAVIANS AND 



classified according to the color of the flowers. Linnaeus based his system on the 

 number and different arrangenmet of the stamens and pistils. This was an artificial 

 system, and Linnisus knew it to be so. He once expressly stated that he expected 

 it to be superseded by a more natural one, where the relationship of the plants 

 would lie better shown. The Linnean sexual system was and is a very convenient 

 one, and has been used more or less up to our times, where the aim has been to 

 give a key, by the means of which one could quickly determine the names of the 

 plants. That LinnffiuB saw the natural relationship of plants is shown by the 

 fact that he later gave names to several of our modern families of plants, and 

 that he arranged his artificial system so that several of his classes or orders are 

 practically equivalent to modern families, as for instance the lith, 19th and 20th 

 classes, and his orders of the loth and 17th classes. ' 



Another invention of his was the uniform binomial names of the species. This 

 was introduced in his ''Species Plantarum'' of 1753. Before Linnsus. the bota- 

 nists, especially since the time of Tournefort, recognized genera in the .same sense 

 as we now do, and designated them by Latin nouns. In order to designate the 

 species, they added to these nouns descriptive phrases consisting of one or usually 

 several adjectives*, or their equivalents. Linna-us reduced the specific name to one 

 adjective. We find occasionally binomial names in works before Linuieus, but he 

 was the first to use consistently only such names. 



By these two systems it ^\■as from this time easy to tabulate and arrange the 

 known facts about plants, and it was comparatively easy to find the description 

 of a certain plant: for each genus had a certain place in the s.vstem and had only 

 one name, and the species had only one additional name to distinguish it from 

 other species of the same genus, in a similar way as John Smith and Andrew 

 Smith of the same family have different personal names. 



During this period many native American botanists explored the country, as 

 John Clayton. John Mitchel. and Thomas "Walter the southern states. C. Colden, 

 .Jane Colden, William and John Bartram the northern. Many Europeans made 

 extensive travels in this continent, as Patrick Broi\Tie, X. .J. von Jacquin and 

 Swartz in the West Indies, and Miguel Veneg'as and A. Menzies on the Pacific 

 coast. 



The following Scandinavians made contributions to the knowledge of the 

 North American flora during this period: 



A. United States and Canada. 



Vehr Kalm was boru at Xerpis. Finland, in 1715, and died 

 as professor at the University- of Abo, the 16th of Xoveinber. 

 1779. 



In the seventeen hundred and nineties, Baron Sten Carl Bielke, 

 then the vice president of the court of apjaeals (hofratten) of Fin- 

 land, proposed to the Eoval Swedish Academy of Sciences at 



• An inustration of the difference in the nomenclature of Linnteus and. that of his predecessors 

 is fonnd below on page 12 in the citation from Ealm, in which the latter Inrst gives the old way of 

 naming the plant, named after him, and the Linnean wa.v, viz., Kalmia latifoUa, 



