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A True Story...

as told by Emma Craib, adapted from several accounts on the web, most notably The Linnean herbarium at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm.

Many years ago in the 1700s Carl Linnaeus, the "Father of Botany", was collecting plants to add to his great collection. This collection was important as it helped him compare and classify the plants of the world following his new system. Like scientists everywhere, even today, he relied on colleagues (people in his field) and acquaintances and friends to help him find specimens of plants wherever they went.

You may have heard of one of Linnaeus' young friends already, Peter Kalm. Peter Kalm was the fellow who came here to North America to collect plants. The Mountain Laurel in our Schoolyard Habitat, the very State Flower of Connecticut, is named after him! Kalmia latifolia is the botanical name. Peter respected Linnaeus and worked to help him complete his great project.

On the trip that this story is about Peter was going to Russia to the great center of St Petersburg. He was going there with another supporter of Linnaeus, the baronet Sten Carl Bielke, who had family business to attend to in the city.. Bielke was, together with Linnaeus, one of the five founders of the Swedish Academy of Sciences (founded in 1739). Bielke worked very hard to arrange to have seeds and pressed plant specimens sent back to Linnaeus. Unfortunately, the circle of scientists interested in botany in St Petersburg were headed by one of Linnaeus' worst enemies, J. E. Siegesbeck, who in 1737 had written an article trashing Linnaeus' new system. When Linnaeus had read this attack on his classification system (Siegesbeck wasn't very nice about it) he was very hurt. Linnaeus had written many friendly letters to him over the years, even named a plant after him! How would you have felt?

So great were the diplomatic and persuasive powers of the baronet he actually got Siegebeck to give him some plants and seeds he wanted for Linnaeus. He had to promise to send some seeds back to St Petersburg in return though.

This is one of the pressed plants sent to Linnaeus by Bielke.

Linnaeus was told he should send Siegesbeck some seeds...so he did. In fact he sent Siegesbeck seeds of the plant that had been named after him....Siegesbeckia.
But on the envelope he had added two more words in Latin.
He wrote "Cuculus ingratus", which means "the ungrateful cuckoo".

If you don't know about cuckoos I should tell you they seem unpleasant birds to most people as they lay their egg in other birds nests, they are parasites. When the one cuckoo egg hatches it pushes to their death the other chicks and eggs. The poor stupid parent birds work their wings to the bone bringing up a giant cuckoo child instead of their own kind. Do you see the connection between Linnaeus writing letters to that man, probably discussing his scientific ideas and sharing his thoughts, and the cuckoo baby eating food that was not fairly gotten?

Poor baronet Bielke! How could he ever hope to get more plants and seeds from the botanists of St Petersburg now that their leader had been so insulted? He tried to get Linnaeus to be a better man and bring the feud to an end.Linnaeus instead sent more seeds to the man who had so hurt him...and this time the envelope was marked "ingratissimus cuculus", the MOST ungrateful cuckoo!

At that point, Bielke had already acquired about 600 plants. From the embarrassment Linnaeus must have caused the good baronet I should think he might have named a dozen plants after him!

 

About the plant picture above: (Text below from the the absolutely awesome web site of The Linnean herbarium at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm)

The picture shows the front of the herbarium sheet that Carolus Linnaeus used to describe the plant Hyoscyamus physalodes in the book Plantarum in 1753.

On the reverse of the sheet, Linnaeus himself has written: "Plantam e Russia misit L. B. Car. Bielke, facies et calyces omnino Physalidis, capsula operculo tecta oro Hyoscyami".

That means that the specimen originated from Russia and was donated by the baronet Sten Carl Bielke. Furthermore that the plant has the general habit and a calyx like in the genus Physalis whereas the capsule provided with a lid more resembles that of Hyoscyamus.