Species plantarum

Species Plantarum , published for the first time in 1753, is a work in two volumes of Carl von Linné (1707-1778). Its realization marks the true starting point of the implementation of the botanical nomenclature such as it is always applied today.

The work is historically remarkable for the following aspects:

it contains the description of all the plants known at the time,
it makes it possible easily to identify them, thanks to an arrangement of each kind in a class and an order established on simple facts of observation (although in fact artificial as for the real relationship) based on the number of cheesecloths and carpelles. By counting those, even without botanical knowledge, each one can reach the list of the kinds to which a plant can belong,
it allots to each species a name in two parts, the binomial name, thus making it possible to be able to approach the nomenclature separately (how to name a species) taxonomy (how to classify it).

Through the many editions which followed that of 1753, even well after the death of its author, the contents of Species plantarum constantly grew rich, constituting thus probably the most important existing publication in biology and contributing to wake up a popular interest growing for sciences.

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