The Curious Death of Peter Artedi Read online

  The daily intercourse we had together derived much of its value from the openhearted way in which we communicated to one another the result of the researches we were undertaking. In this friendly competition, I despaired of ever attaining the same degree of familiarity with the lore of the alchemists that he so thoroughly possessed—I reluctantly acknowledged this fact and relinquished from that time forth the pursuit of that study altogether. I was determined, however, to maintain my full sovereignty in the department of botany, and fully expected him to obligingly desist from the keen inquiry he had previously been following up in that realm, and I was almost successful. But after some contentious argument I felt forced to yield to him the umbellate plants, which he strongly reserved the right to study. He had for some time been working—or so he claimed, and I had no reason to doubt his word—on a new method of classifying this difficult assemblage, which includes those plants with umbrella-like flowers, the hemlock, cow parsley, celery, coriander, and the like. He told me while quite excited that he had been studying the works of the well-known French botanist SÉBASTIEN VAILLANT and had quite by accident come across a review, published in 1718 in the Leipzig Commentaries, of VAILLANT’S book titled Sermo de Structura et Differentia Florum usuque, partium eos Constituentium (Discourse on the Structure and Diversity of the Flowers and of the Use of the Constituted Parts), which gave curious indications of the sexuality of plants. This, ARTEDI said, had pleased him very much, for he began at that time to take notice of the functions of the stamina (stamens, the male organs) and pistilla (pistils, the female organs) of flowers and of the essential parts of plants in general. He expressed the thought that these parts, varying as they do among species, as much or more so than the petals, might, in fact, be used as a way to order the contents of the Umbelliferae in a new way that would vastly decrease the chaos this group was in at present. I was thunderstruck by these radical suggestions, which no one had thought of or expressed before—by all my reckoning this was a concept completely new, but I strove to keep my enthusiasm from bubbling forth, and retained my thoughts about its possible utility to myself.

  That plants, in a way not wholly dissimilar to animals, engage in sexual union was a subject that had been in my mind ever since my early days in preparatory school at Växjö. It was here that I was greatly stimulated in this direction by the private tutoring of Dr. ROTHMANN, who, in addition to providing instruction on the botanical system of TOURNEFORT, made me aware that indeed flowers are the sexual organs of plants—a theory completely new in that time, not at all generally accepted nor even widely known. But, I must admit, my thoughts had not progressed so far as to imagine that details of this system might prove useful as a method to reveal order and hierarchy in nature. It was thus at this instant in time, during this quite useful conversation with my friend, that there became aroused in me a desire to apply the same to plants in general. With ARTEDI’S kind permission, which he happily gave, he being of a most generous nature, I summarized quickly the salient points of my thesis, conforming in all manner with genuine botanical principles, in a handwritten pamphlet that I titled Praeludia Sponsaliarum Plantarum (Prelude to the Espousals of Plants). I then, in 1730, presented the whole to Professor OLOF CELSIUS, who was then my teacher and patron and in whose house I was living at the time, as the customary New Year’s Day gift that all students were obliged to give their benefactors on that occasion every year. By describing vessels, fibers, and other anatomical similarities, as well as diseases, hibernation, and other likenesses, I attempted to establish in this small tract the great analogy between plants and animals. And so, with these elaborations, which were quite well accepted by CELSIUS and the others who were made aware of it, I was able to show quite convincingly the ways in which plants are indeed sexual beings. In fact, I am still so pleased by this work, which I came to call my Systema Sexuale (Sexual System), even though decades of time have past and I have produced many other things that no doubt surpass it, I feel obligated to return to this subject in due course.

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  So it was too in matters of method. Early in my schooling, mostly by instruction that I made available to myself personally—for I never met anyone who could provide me with any help in this department—I began to think about a system or method by which the student of nature could accurately and successfully put together the history of each and every natural subject, whether it be a single specimen or a grouping thereof. Much to my surprise, and, might I say, consternation, ARTEDI let it be known to me that he too in like manner had put some ideas of this subject to paper. Much of what he described was of a similar bent to my own direction in this area, but in some ways he was thoroughly ahead of me, a realization that made my head spin, but I was careful to keep this worry to myself. He began first to talk about names and of naming, much of which was not at all new, some of it, in fact, very old, dating back to ancient Greek times, with ARISTOTLE and THEOPHRASTUS, and more recently laid down in a more elaborate form still by the likes of GESSNER, ALDROVANDI, and JONSTONUS. But a good portion of what he wrote, now with my assistance, was wholly new, and what was not, was still very much worth our reiteration.

  After names, ARTEDI’S attention turned to theory, of the thought intended by the use of class, order, and family, of the meaning behind genus, and of the species. And so it was, in this way, that we began a fervent collaboration to set down our rules, which we were wholly confident, would mediate a general reformation of all of the branches of natural science. Bearing the mutually agreed upon title of Methodus Demonstrandi Animalia, Vegetabilia, aut Lapides (Demonstration of the Methods to be Applied to Animals, Plants, and Minerals), the final draft commenced as follows:

  Of Names and of Naming: (1) Give the chosen name, both generic and specific of a particular author, if there already is such, or give a name oneself, if a new description is required; (2) List the synonyms of all the principal specialists; (3) List as far as possible the synonyms used by all the ancient and more recent authors; (4) Give the various vernacular names, translated into Latin; (5) List the synonyms used by various peoples, of all worldly parts where the subject or subjects are to be found, especially the Greek names; and (6) State the etymology of all the generic names.

  Of the Theory: (1) Give the classification as to classes and orders according to all the systems chosen; (2) Give the classification as to maniples or families, also according to the systems chosen; and (3) State the genera to which the subject or subjects in question have been assigned by various and diverse specialists.

  Of the Genus: (1) Give an account of the natural characters, with a list of all possible characteristic features; (2) Give the essential characters, pointing out the one most distinguishing feature or that which is most exclusive to the genus; (3) Set forth also artificial characters in order to distinguish the genera treated as units in the system; (4) Explain all erroneous ideas, that is, unsubstantiated claims or idle dreams of authors, in the sense of anomalies, monsters, and the like; (5) Establish and demonstrate the natural genus; and (6) Confirm the chosen name of the genus, which must always consist of a single word in Latin, and state why other names are to be rejected.

  Of the Species: (1) Let the most complete description of the subject be set forth, according to all the external parts; (2) Review all the species known or discovered of the genus under discussion; (3) Set forth all the essential differences between the species under discussion, along with their characters, in a diagnostic phrase in Latin of length not more than twelve words; (4) Establish and retain the primary differences and reject the others; (5) Put together the specific difference of the subject or subjects and provide an exposition of the reasons for what has been done until every word of it has been fully accounted for; (6) Set out all the variations of the species under discussion, as described by the authors; and (7) Subordinate these variations to the species to which they naturally belong, with the reason for the action proposed.

  In like manner, we discussed at length, and drew u
p plans on paper to present, in the best way possible, every one of these categories, examining them each in their turn with a certain detail, but wanting the product at the end to remain as simple as possible. It was ARTEDI’S suggestion that we set a firm rule that the genus name shall consist of only a single word taken from the Latin language. As this was not such a revolutionary idea, even during that time, I made no real objection to including a statement of this kind in the Methodus, thinking it a practical and quite useful convention. In fact, I resolved at this early time to put it down for all posterity in published form, and did so quite explicitly for plants in my Critica Botanica (Rules for Botanical Naming), which, as you well know, appeared at Leiden in 1737. In this treatise, I took full liberty to reject many of the generic names used by both my predecessors and contemporaries, which by the latter, as you might expect, was not at all well received. I well remember the stinging rebuke from one of my detractors whose name is not worth giving here, who wrote to me on 15 November 1737:

  You promise to account, in your Critica Botanica, for your numerous alterations of my plant names. I presume you have followed the rules laid down in your Fundamenta Botanica. Still many of those rules may, perhaps, not be universally approved, any more than your changes of names. I beseech you to consider what would be the consequence, if every body were to lay down such laws and regulations, at his pleasure, or whenever he felt so inclined, thus overturning names, already known and approved by the best authors, for the sake of making new ones. Would it not lead to worse than the confusion of Babel?

  Another woefully ungrateful, yet far more savage, attack, which, when I saw it, made me shake with anger and caused me profound illness for several days, was put to paper by one who had been my good friend and colleague for many years:

  The unmitigated dominance which you have assumed in the plant and animal kingdoms must upon the whole be abhorrent to many. You have considered yourself a second ADAM who has given names to all the products of nature according to their features, which you alone deem most distinctive, without the slightest bother about your predecessors. You can hardly restrain yourself to make man a monkey, or the monkey a man.

  O, why these painful barbs? Why cannot these men of superior intelligence see it my way? Why cannot they accept that I have made a revolution in the science of nature, if it is not for their insidious jealousy? But, no matter these silly complaints—it was my expressed intention, regardless of who might not agree or might feel unhappy about it, to make the names short, distinctive, memorable, and as pleasing to the ear as possible. Among other innovations, I took the lead from that industrious French monk CHARLES PLUMIER, most famous for his curious work on American ferns—you are no doubt familiar with his Traité des Fougères de l’Amérique (Treatise on the Ferns of America), published in Paris in 1705—to commemorate the lives of my fellow botanists by creating names in their honor. Thus, I took great pains, as well as pleasure, to celebrate the fond memory of my predecessors in this science, and the contributions of my teachers, patrons, and close acquaintances, with names like Tournefortia, denoting a handsome and most delightful heliotrope for the great JOSEPH PITTON DE TOURNEFORT; Rudbeckia, the black-eyed Susan, for OLOF RUDBECK the Younger; Cliffortia, a kind of rose, for GEORGE CLIFFORD; Burmannia, a kind of lily native to Ceylon, for JOHANNES BURMANN who wrote so elegantly of the plants of that domain; Halleria, containing, in addition to other things, the African honeysuckle for my friend ALBRECHT VON HALLER; Dillenia, which of all plants has the showiest flower and fruit, even as JOHANN DILLENIUS made a brilliant show among botanists; and, of course, for my dear friend, Artedia, a parsley-like umbelliferous plant so deeply loved by him. A great multitude of other patronymics were established by me for worthy people, but also for some unworthy individuals, who for no good reason whatsoever, attacked my work or in other ways did their best to make my life miserable. I offer here only two examples: for JOHAN SIEGESBECK, a strange man, who with spite and arrogance wrote in harsh criticism of my Systema Sexuale, I named Sigesbeckia, a highly unpleasant, small-flowered weed. In like manner, I did much the same for that well-known French naturalist BUFFON, who very unwisely attacked me as a worthless “classifier” and “nomenclator.” On one particular occasion, he reproached me for placing the flying fox in the same genus as the European bat:

  These two species do not have the same number of teeth in the lower jaw, thus, they cannot be from the same genus, according to this author’s own method, the latter, in this case, based wholly on the order and number of the teeth. Besides this blunder, the flying fox is American, thus, this unfortunate author has erred again in forming a generic name that brings together a large number of species, not only different in essential character, but often far removed from one another geographically.

  Never did I respond to this inane criticism directly, but I made it so that his name will forever be associated with Buffonia, a plant with a particularly unpleasant odor; but also, by dropping out a letter, I cleverly associated this silly man with Bufo, the ancient Latin name for toad. Somewhat later, in a lengthy discourse published in the twelfth edition of my Systema Naturae (System of Nature), on the Quadrupedia, a group to which BUFFON had devoted much of his life, I did not condescend to even mention any of his many works. But, I have now strayed quite far from my intended purpose, so let us now return.

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  In sharp contrast to ARTEDI’S way of thinking, and this I must admit, I objected rather violently to a similar suggestion from him for the species name; that is, to employ as well only a single word for this aspect of naming. At the time, it seemed ludicrous to me to replace the traditional Latin descriptive phrase to denote a species, which was in wide use then, more or less following the precepts laid down so long ago by ARISTOTLE, that ancient who was first in everything. And here it might be useful to provide an example of what I mean. By purely random choice, let us investigate the name of the common buttercup, which in scientific circles is Ranunculus seminibus aculeatis, foliis superioribus decompositis linearibus. The first of these words, Ranunculus, is the genus name, which, for those of you whose Latin is lacking, means “little frog,” providing useful indication that the buttercup grows in wet places where the frog itself abounds. The second part of the name is the species component, intended to provide a description of the primary distinguishing features of the species, which, in this case, when fully translated, refers to a kind of buttercup, “with prickly seeds, the uppermost leaves more than once divided, each narrow, with sides nearly parallel.”