Carolus Linnaeus the Younger

Carl von Linné or Carolus Linnaeus the Younger (20 January 1741 – 1 November 1783) was a Swedish naturalist. He is known as Linnaeus filius (abbreviated to L.f. as a botanical authority) to distinguish him from his famous father, the systematist Carolus Linnaeus.

He was enrolled at the University of Uppsala at the age of nine and was taught science by his father's students, including Pehr Löfling, Daniel Solander and Johann Peter Falck. In 1763, aged just 22, he succeeded his father as the head of Practical Medicine at Uppsala. His promotion to professor — without taking exams or defending a thesis — caused resentment among his colleagues.

Linnaeus' work was modest in comparison to that of his father. His best known work is the "Supplementum Plantarum systematis vegetabilium" of 1781, which contains botanical descriptions by the elder Linnaeus and his colleagues, edited and with additions by the son.

He inherited his father's extensive scientific collections and correspondence and worked to preserve them. When he died childless on 1 November 1783 (of jaundice contracted on a visit to London) his mother sold the collections to the English botanist Sir James Edward Smith, who left them to the Linnean Society of London.

External links

* [http://www2.nrm.se/fbo/hist/linnefil/linfil.html.en Carl Linnaeus fil. Botanical History] from the [http://www.nrm.se/ Swedish Museum of Natural History]