' (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "The Species of Plants") is a book by
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
, originally published in 1753, which lists every
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
of
plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...
known at the time, classified into
genera. It is the first work to consistently apply
binomial names
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
and was the starting point for the
naming of plants.
Publication
' was published on 1 May 1753 by Laurentius Salvius in Stockholm, in two volumes.
A second edition was published in 1762–1763,
and a third edition in 1764, although this "scarcely differed" from the second. Further editions were published after Linnaeus' death in 1778, under the direction of
Karl Ludwig Willdenow, the director of the
Berlin Botanical Garden; the fifth edition (1800) was published in four volumes.
Importance
![Keskmise teelehe õisik Plantago media](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Keskmise_teelehe_%C3%B5isik_Plantago_media.jpg)
' was the first botanical work to consistently apply the
binomial nomenclature
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
system of naming to any large group of organisms (Linnaeus'
tenth edition of ' would apply the same technique to animals for the first time in 1758). Prior to this work, a plant species would be known by a long polynomial, such as ' (meaning "
plantain
Plantain may refer to:
Plants and fruits
* Cooking banana, banana cultivars in the genus ''Musa'' whose fruits are generally used in cooking
** True plantains, a group of cultivars of the genus ''Musa''
* ''Plantaginaceae'', a family of flowerin ...
with pubescent ovate-lanceolate leaves, a cylindrical spike and a terete scape")
or ' (meaning "''Nepeta'' with flowers in a stalked, interrupted spike").
In ', these cumbersome names were replaced with two-part names, consisting of a single-word genus name, and a single-word
specific epithet or "trivial name"; the two examples above became ''
Plantago media
''Plantago media'', known as the hoary plantain, is a species of flowering plant in the plantain family Plantaginaceae. It is native to central and western Europe, including Great Britain and introduced to parts of the north-east United States. ...
'' and ''
Nepeta cataria
''Nepeta cataria'', commonly known as catnip, catswort, catwort, and catmint, is a species of the genus '' Nepeta'' in the family Lamiaceae, native to southern and eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of China. It is widely ...
'', respectively.
The use of binomial names had originally been developed as a kind of
shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''st ...
in a student project about the plants eaten by cattle.
After the specific epithet, Linnaeus gave a short description of each species, and a
synonymy
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...
. The descriptions were careful and terse, consisting of few words in small genera; in ''
Glycyrrhiza
''Glycyrrhiza'' is a genus of about 20 accepted species in the legume family (Fabaceae), with a subcosmopolitan distribution in Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas.
The genus is best known for liquorice (British English; licorice in Amer ...
'', for instance, the three species (''
Glycyrrhiza echinata
''Glycyrrhiza echinata'' is a species of flowering plant in the genus ''Glycyrrhiza'', with various common names that include Chinese licorice, German licorice, and hedgehog licorice, Eastern European licorice, Hungarian licorice, Prickly licori ...
'', ''
Glycyrrhiza glabra
Liquorice (British English) or licorice (American English) ( ; also ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted.
The liqu ...
'' and "''Glycyrrhiza hirsuta''", respectively) were described as "'", "'" and "'".
Because it is the first work in which binomial nomenclature was consistently applied, ' was chosen as the "starting point" for the
nomenclature
Nomenclature (, ) is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. The principles of naming vary from the relatively informal naming conventions, conventions of everyday speech to the i ...
of most plants (the nomenclature of some
non-vascular plant
Non-vascular plants are plants without a vascular system consisting of xylem and phloem. Instead, they may possess simpler tissues that have specialized functions for the internal transport of water.
Non-vascular plants include two distantly rel ...
s and all
fungi
A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...
uses later starting points).
Contents
' contained descriptions of the thousands of plant species known to Linnaeus at the time. In the first edition, there were 5,940 names, from ''
Acalypha australis'' to ''
Zygophyllum spinosum
''Zygophyllum'' is the type genus of the flowering plant family Zygophyllaceae. The generic name is derived from the Greek language, Greek words ζυγόν (''zygon''), meaning "double", and φυλλον (''phyllon''), meaning "leaf". It refer ...
''. In his introduction, Linnaeus estimated that there were fewer than 10,000 plant species in existence; there are now thought to be around 400,000 species of flowering plants alone.
The species were arranged in around a thousand genera, which were grouped into 24 classes, according to Linnaeus'
sexual system
A sexual system is a pattern of sex allocation or a distribution of male and female function across organisms in a species. Terms like reproductive system and mating system have also been used as synonyms.
The distinction between sexual systems ...
of classification.
There are no descriptions of the genera in '; these are supplied in the companion volume ' ("the genera of plants"), the fifth edition of which was printed at a similar time to the first edition of '.
Linnaeus' sexual system is now acknowledged to be an artificial system, rather than one which accurately reflects
shared ancestry
Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. All living beings are in fact descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal comm ...
,
but the system's simplicity made it easier for non-specialists to rapidly find the correct class, being based on simple counts of floral parts such as
stigmas and
stamen
The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10
Morphology and terminology
A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filame ...
s.
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
** ''Species Plantarum''
vol. 1vol. 2at
Biodiversity Heritage Library facsimile
** ''Species Plantarum''
vol. 1vol. 2at
Botanicus
The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 6.6 million s ...
*
* ''Species Plantarum'' at
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."
It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...
br>
I-IIIIV-VVI-XXI-XIII
text
Linnaeus Link Union Catalogue
{{Authority control
1753 books
Botanical nomenclature
Florae (publication)
Botany books
Carl Linnaeus
1753 in science
18th-century Latin books