Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist who lived form 1707 to 1778. He was also known as Carl von Linné, Carolus Linnæus or Carolus a Linné.Linnaeus as been called the "father of modern taxonomy", as he formalised the binomial nomenclature and for his classificatipon of plants. He has been called has been called Princeps botanicorum, Prince of
Botanists, The Pliny of the North.
Binomial nomenclatureOther names for the binomial nomenclature are: binominal nomenclature, binary nomenclature, two-term naming system, two-name naming system. It is a formal system of naming living beings by giving them a name in Latin, composed of two parts. The first part is the generic name, the name of the genus of the living being, the second part is the specific name or specific epithet, which identifies the species.
The formal introduction of the binomial nomenclature is credited to Carl Linnaeus, as described in his work Species Plantarum in 1753. But Gaspard Bauhin had introduced it already in 1623 in his book Pinax theatri botanici. Many of his names of genera were later adopted by Linnaeus.
In reality the binomial nomenclature has been widely used in many languages, as common sense. For instance
Amaranthus retroflexus has been known as redroot pigweed, a name starting with a specific followed by a genus name.
Linnaeus classificationThe classification of plants by Linnaeus has not been widely adopted. It was mostly based on the number of stamens in the flowers. A single property turned out to be insufficient to classify complex living beings.