Systema Naturae

Systema Naturæ

Title page of the 1758 edition of Linnaeus's Systema Naturæ.[1]
Author	Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné)
Country	Sweden
Subject	Taxonomy
Genre	Biological classification
Publication date	1735 (1735)
LC Class	QH43 .S21

Systema Naturae (sometimes written Systema Naturæ with the ligature æ) was one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomenclature, was partially developed by the Bauhin brothers, Gaspard and Johann, 200 years earlier,^[2] Linnaeus was first to use it consistently throughout his book. The first edition was published in 1735. The full title of the 10th edition (1758), which was the most important one, was Systema naturæ per regna tria naturæ, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis or translated: "System of nature through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera and species, with characters, differences, synonyms, places".

The tenth edition of this book (1758) is considered the starting point of zoological nomenclature.^[3] In 1766–1768 Linnaeus published the much enhanced 12th edition, the last under his authorship. Another again enhanced work in the same style and entitled "Systema Naturae" was published by Johann Friedrich Gmelin between 1788 and 1793. Since at least the early 1900s zoologists commonly recognized this as the last edition belonging to this series.^[4][5] It was also officially regarded by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature in Opinion 296 (26 Oct 1954) as the 13th edition of Systema Naturae.^[6]

Overview

Linnaeus (later known as "Carl von Linné", after his ennoblement in 1761)^[7] published the first edition of Systema Naturae in the year 1735, during his stay in the Netherlands. As was customary for the scientific literature of its day, the book was published in Latin. In it, he outlined his ideas for the hierarchical classification of the natural world, dividing it into the animal kingdom (regnum animale), the plant kingdom (regnum vegetabile), and the "mineral kingdom" (regnum lapideum).

Linnaeus's Systema Naturae lists only about 10,000 species of organisms, of which about 6,000 are plants and 4,236 are animals.^[8] According to the historian of botany William T. Stearn, "Even in 1753 he believed that the number of species of plants in the whole world would hardly reach 10,000; in his whole career he named about 7,700 species of flowering plants."^[9]

Linnaeus did not suppose that his classification of the plant kingdom in the book was natural, reflecting the logic of God's creation.^[10] His sexual system, where species with the same number of stamens were treated in the same group, was convenient but in his view artificial.^[10] Linnaeus believed in God's creation, and that there were no deeper relationships to be expressed. He is frequently quoted to have said. "God created, Linnaeus organized". The classification of animals was more natural. For instance, humans were for the first time placed together with other primates, as Anthropomorpha.

In view of the popularity of the work, Linnaeus kept publishing new and ever-expanding editions, growing from eleven very large pages in the first edition (1735) to 2,400 pages in the 12th edition (1766–1768).^[11] Also, as the work progressed, he made changes: in the first edition, whales were classified as fishes, following the work of Linnaeus' friend and "father of ichthyology" Peter Artedi; in the 10th edition, published in 1758, whales were moved into the mammal class. In this same edition, he introduced two part names (see binomen) for animal species, something he had done for plant species (see binary name) in the 1753 publication of Species Plantarum. The system eventually developed into modern Linnaean taxonomy, a hierarchically organized biological classification.

After the decline in Linnaeus' health in the early 1770s, publication of editions of Systema Naturae went in two different directions. Another Swedish scientist, Johan Andreas Murray issued the Regnum Vegetabile section separately in 1774 as the Systema Vegetabilium, rather confusingly labelled the 13th edition.^[12] Meanwhile, a 13th edition of the entire Systema appeared in parts between 1788-1793. It was as the Systema Vegetabilium, that Linnaeus' work became widely known in England following translation from the Latin by the Lichfield Botanical Society, as A System of Vegetables (1783–1785).^[13]

Taxonomy

In his Imperium Naturæ, Linnaeus established three kingdoms, namely Regnum Animale, Regnum Vegetabile and Regnum Lapideum. This approach, the Animal, Vegetable and Mineral Kingdoms, survives until today in the popular mind, notably in the form of parlour games: "Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?". The classification was based on five levels: kingdom, class, order, genus, and species. While species and genus was seen as God-given (or "natural"), the three higher levels were seen by Linnaeus as constructs. The concept behind the set ranks being applied to all groups was to make a system that was easy to remember and navigate, a task in which he must be said to have succeeded.

The 1735 classification of animals

Linnaeus's work had a huge impact on science; it was indispensable as a foundation for biological nomenclature, now regulated by the Nomenclature Codes. Two of his works, the first edition of the Species Plantarum (1753) for plants and the 10th edition of the Systema Naturæ (1758), are accepted among the starting points of nomenclature. Most of his names for species and genera were published at very early dates, thus take priority over those of other, later works. In zoology there is one exception, which is a monograph on Swedish spiders, Svenska Spindlar,^[14] published by Carl Clerck in 1757, so the names established there take priority over the Linnean names.^[15] However, his impact on science was not because of the value of his taxonomy. His talent for attracting skillful young students and sending them abroad to collect made his work far more influential than that of his contemporaries.^[16] At the close of the 18th century, his system had effectively become the standard system for biological classification.

The Animal Kingdom

Only in the Animal Kingdom is the higher taxonomy of Linnaeus still more or less recognizable and some of these names are still in use, but usually not quite for the same groups as used by Linnaeus. He divided the Animal Kingdom into six classes; in the tenth edition (1758), these were:

1. Mammalia comprised the mammals. In the first edition, whales and the West Indian manatee were classified among the fishes.
2. Aves comprised the birds. Linnaeus was the first to remove bats from the birds and classify them under mammals.
3. Amphibia comprised amphibians, reptiles, and assorted fishes that are not of Osteichthyes.
4. Pisces comprised the bony fishes. These included the spiny-finned fishes (Perciformes) as a separate order.
5. Insecta comprised all arthropods. Crustaceans, arachnids and myriapods were included as the order "Aptera".
6. Vermes comprised the remaining invertebrates, roughly divided into "worms", molluscs, and hard-shelled organisms like echinoderms.

The Plant Kingdom

His orders and classes of plants, according to his Systema Sexuale, were never intended to represent natural groups (as opposed to his ordines naturales in his Philosophia Botanica) but only for use in identification. They were used in that sense well into the 19th century.

Key to the Sexual System from the 10th (1758) edition of Systema Naturæ

The Linnaean classes for plants, in the Sexual System, were:

The Mineral Kingdoms

Linnaeus's taxonomy of minerals has long since fallen out of use. In the 10th edition, 1758, of the Systema Naturæ, the Linnaean classes were:

• Classis 1. Petræ (rocks)
• Classis 2. Mineræ (minerals and ores)
• Classis 3. Fossilia (fossils and aggregates)^[17]

Editions

The Gmelin thirteenth (decima tertia) edition of 1788-1793, is likely to be confused with another thirteenth edition prepared by Johan Andreas Murray in 1774, and then subsequently in further editions, all under a revised name of Systema Vegetabilium.^[12]

The dates of publication for Gmelin's edition were the following:^[18]

• Part 1: pp. [1–12], 1–500 (25 July 1788)
• Part 2: pp. 501–1032 (20 April 1789)
• Part 3: pp. 1033–1516 (20 November 1789)
• Part 4: pp. 1517–2224 (21 May 1790)
• Part 5: pp. 2225–3020 (6 December 1790)
• Part 6: pp. 3021–3910 (14 May 1791)
• Part 7: pp. 3911–4120 (2 July 1792)

See also

• 10th edition of Systema Naturae
• 12th edition of Systema Naturae
• Supplementum Plantarum
• Animalia Paradoxa

References

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Systema Naturae.

• Linné online

History of botany Fields and disciplines Agriculture Biogeography Bryology Cladistics Comparative anatomy Cytology Economic botany Ethnobotany Floristics Forestry Genetic engineering Horticulture Lichenology Molecular phylogenetics Mycology Natural history Numerical taxonomy Paleobotany Palynology Phycology Phytochemistry Phytogeography Plant anatomy Plant ecology Plant genetics Plant morphology Plant pathology Plant physiology Pteridology Institutions Jardin des Plantes Natural History Museum, London Orto botanico di Padova Orto botanico di Pisa Rothamsted Research Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Publications Historia Plantarum and Causes of Plants of Theophrastus c. 300 BC De Plantis of Nicolaus of Damascus c. 1st-century BC De Materia Medica of Dioscorides c. 60 AD Naturalis Historia 77–79 AD De Vegetabilibus of Albertus Magnus c. 1256 Herbarum Vivae Icones 1530 Libellus De Re Herbaria Novus 1538 Kreütterbuch of Hieronymus Bock 1539 De plantis libri XVI of Caesalpino 1583 Stirpium Historiae 1583 Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes 1597 Prodromus Theatrici Botanici 1620 Pinax theatri botanici 1623 Anatome Plantarum 1675 Anatomy of Plants 1682 Historia Plantarum of John Ray 1686–1704 De Sexu Plantarum Epistola 1694 Éléments de botanique 1694 Vegetable Staticks 1727 Systema Naturae 1735 Genera Plantarum 1737 Philosophia Botanica 1751 Species Plantarum 1753 Systema Naturae, 10th ed. 1758–9 Familles des Plantes 1763–4 Experiments Upon Vegetables 1779 Die Metamorphose der Pflantzen 1790 Traité d'Anatomie et de Physiologie Végétale 1802 Recherches Chimiques sur la Végétation 1804 Beyträge zur Anatomie der Pflanzen 1812 Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis 1824–73 Die Vegetabilische Zelle 1851 Vergleichende Untersuchungen 1851 On the Origin of Species 1859 Experiments on Plant Hybridization 1865 Die Vegetation der Erde 1872 Plantesamfund 1895 Pflanzengeographie auf Physiologischer Grundlage 1898 Variation and Evolution in Plants 1950 Ontogeny and Phylogeny 1977 An Integrated System of Classification of Flowering Plants 1981 Theories and concepts Alternation of generations Cell theory Center of diversity Phylogenetic nomenclature Spontaneous generation Taxonomy Ultrastructure Influential figures Theophrastus c. 371–287 BC Pliny the Elder 23–79 AD Pedanius Dioscorides c. 40–90 AD Otto Brunfels 1464–1534 Hieronymus Bock 1498–1554 Valerius Cordus 1515–1544 William Turner 1515–1568 Rembert Dodoens 1517–1585 Andrea Cesalpino 1519–1603 Gaspard Bauhin 1560–1624 Joachim Jungius 1587–1657 John Ray 1623–1705 Nehemiah Grew 1628–1711 Marcello Malpighi 1628–1694 Joseph Pitton de Tournefort 1656–1708 Rudolf Jakob Camerarius 1665–1721 Stephen Hales 1677–1761 Bernard de Jussieu 1699–1777 Carolus Linnaeus 1707–1778 Michel Adanson 1727–1806 Jan Ingenhousz 1730–1799 Joseph Banks 1743–1820 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749–1832 Carl Ludwig Willdenow 1765–1812 Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure 1767–1845 Alexander von Humboldt 1769–1859 Aimé Bonpland 1773–1858 Thomas Nuttall 1786–1859 Joakim Frederik Schouw 1789–1852 Matthias Jakob Schleiden 1804–1881 Alexander Braun 1805–1877 George Engelmann 1809–1884 Asa Gray 1810–1888 August Grisebach 1814–1879 Joseph Hooker 1817–1911 Gregor Mendel 1822–1884 Nathanael Pringsheim 1823–1894 Wilhelm Hofmeister 1824–1877 Julius von Sachs 1832–1897 Eugenius Warming 1841–1924 William Gilson Farlow 1844–1919 Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper 1856–1901 Nikolai Vavilov 1887–1943 Barbara McClintock 1902–1992 G. Ledyard Stebbins 1906–2000 Eugene Odum 1913–2002 Arthur Cronquist 1919–1992 Related topics Botanical garden Herbal History of agricultural science History of agriculture History of biochemistry History of biotechnology History of ecology History of evolutionary thought History of genetics History of geology History of medicine History of molecular biology History of molecular evolution History of paleontology History of phycology History of plant systematics History of science Natural philosophy Philosophy of biology Systems of plant taxonomy Timeline of biology and organic chemistry Category Commons Portal

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