170 
LINNAEUS 
speaking, recognized Linnaeus as a great and rising 
light, and as a prince amongst the botanists of his 
age. A public acknowledgment of Linnaeus’s services 
was made by the Academia Imperialis Leopoldino- 
Carolina Naturae Curiosorum, which on the 3rd 
October, 1736, elected him as a member, and accord¬ 
ing to the regulations, bestowed upon him the name 
of “ Dioscorides secundus.” As another testimony to 
the great regard in which he was held, was Haller’s 
suggestion that he should succeed him as professor at 
Gottingen, as he himself intended to return soon to 
his native Switzerland. 
Amongst the praises which the young Swede 
received from various countries, there was one un¬ 
favourable criticism. It was from the demonstrator 
of botany at St. Petersburg, J. G. Siegesbeck, who 
entirely unexpectedly came forward as his opponent, 
basing his claims on his work published in 1737, 
“ Botanosophiae verioris brevis sciagraphia ” [Short 
outline of true botanic wisdom]. In this he attempted 
to demolish Linnaeus’s published views on the sexu¬ 
ality of plants, with the system founded upon it, and 
among other arguments, he put forth the plea that 
God would never, in the vegetable kingdom, have 
allowed such odious vice as that several males 
(anthers) should possess one wife (pistil) in common, 
or that a true husband should, in certain composite 
flowers, besides its legitimate partner, have near it 
illegitimate mistresses; and he complained that so 
unchaste a system should be taught to studious youth. 
That Linnaeus felt himself unpleasantly astonished 
at this unfavourable criticism is the less surprising, 
as the writer, a short time before, was in friendly 
correspondence with him. Linnaeus had named a 
genus after him and intended to visit St. Petersburg, 
where he had been invited to stay with Siegesbeck as 
his honoured guest. Meanwhile, he did not consider 
himself obliged to reply to this stupid and lying 
volume (and also he was hindered by illness). In 
