THE 
American-Scandinavian 
Review 
Volume X October, 1922 Number 10 
Carl Von Linne 
By Elof Forberg 
May 23 is a red letter day in the annals of natural science, for 
on that day, two hundred and fifteen years ago, was born Carl Lin¬ 
naeus, known to fame as the “king of flowers.” He has also been 
acclaimed as “the greatest systematizing genius of all ages,” and his 
birthday has recently by common consent been chosen to commemo¬ 
rate the achievements of Swedish science. His work marks the begin¬ 
ning of an epoch. Before his time, in the so-called pre-Linnean period, 
conditions in the realm of natural science were absolutely chaotic. 
He arranged and clarified, so that his contemporaries said. “God 
created; Linnaeus brought order.” 
Carl Linnaeus first saw the light of day in a little sod-roofed 
vicarage, Rashult in Smaland. In an autobiography published after 
his death he says that he was born in “the most beautiful time of spring 
just between leafing and flowering.” Not long after Carl’s birth, his 
father became rector of Stenbrohult, and in their new home he laid 
out a garden which became “one of the loveliest in the land.” There 
Carl grew up “among the flowers, which gave him so much pleasure 
that the memory could never be effaced by any subsequent suffering.” 
When the child was restless and all other means of quieting him 
failed, his mother could always soothe him by giving him a flower to 
play with. He was no more than four years old when he began to 
ask his father about the names of plants, and soon he asked such 
questions that the good rector did not know how to answer them. 
Linne grew up in the latter—the disastrous—half of Charles 
XII’s heroic saga. The king’s marvelous progress from victory to 
victory in Poland and Russia had been followed by the terrible defeat 
at Poltava. The recently conquered foes of Sweden began to lift 
their heads again. Russians, Poles, and Danes broke in over the 
