300 years of Carolus Linnaeus

Carolus Linnaeus, father of modern taxonomy

300 years of Carolus Linnaeus birth are celebrated today; he was a Swedish scientist who laid the foundations of modern biological taxonomy.  The biological taxonomy orders organisms with a binomial nomenclature that allows the accurate naming of all the species of animals and vegetables.  Linnaeus wrote «if you ignore the name of things, what you know of them also disappears».

His system of classification uses two terms: genera and species.  The scientific names of animals and plants are generally written in Latin placing the genera first, with a capital letter, and the species later, with small letter.  Sometimes it is necessary to add a particular characteristic of the subject.  In that sense, the scientific name of the national flower of Guatemala is Lycaste virginalis white variety.  This last characteristic makes reference to its white color.

Also it groups the genera in families, these in classes, the classes in types, and these in kingdoms.  

Carlos Linnaeus was born in Sweden on May 23rd of 1707 and died on January 10 of 1778.   His more important work is Systema Naturae that he completed and improved with each new edition; in the one of 1758 Linnaeus generalized his system. 

In the
Arboretum of Universidad Francisco Marroquín you can see the scientific names of the species that inhabit the University campus and the Montano forests in the city of Guatemala.