f Library 
new yor.,\ 
BOTANICAL 
[ GARDEN 
CHAPTER I 
BIRTH, PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD—RESIDENCE AT 
VAXJO SCHOOL AND LUND UNIVERSITY (1707-17 2 j) 
The ancestors of Carl von Linne were, as he said, 
peasants and priests, plain and simple farmers, who 
by dint of thrift managed to procure education for a 
son, or even two, to fit them for the church. Thus, 
Ingemar Bengtsson (1633-1693), the grandfather of 
Linnaeus, had a son, Nils Ingemarsson, who took a 
surname from a famous lime-tree—Linnaeus—when 
he entered upon his school and university career. 
This tree had served the same object when his 
cousins derived their surname, Tiliander, Tilia (the 
Latin for lime-tree), and the suffix “ ander,” from 
the Greek, avjp, cvSpos, a man, familiar to us in the 
names of the two Swedes who were successively 
librarians to Sir Joseph Banks, Bart.—Daniel 
Solander and Jonas Dryander. A third branch of 
-C the family assumed the name Lindelius, from lind, 
* the Swedish name of the same tree, but possibly it 
. may have been taken from their farm, Linnegarden. 
The special tree, popularly supposed to supply these 
7- three surnames, had acquired a sanctity amongst the 
— neighbours, who firmly believed that ill-fortune surely 
\ befell those who took even a twig from the grand 
v and stately tree. A further and widespread supersti¬ 
tion was, that if and when one of the three main 
branches died, the corresponding family would die 
1 A 
V—I 
