Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum

Probably, even at the school in Vaxjo in 1726, the natural history teacher Dr. Juhan Rotman introduced his student Karl Linnaeus to the ideas of the French botanist Sebastian Vayan about the field of plants ^[2] .

Judging by Linnaeus' manuscripts relating to his stay at Lund University (1726-1727), at that time he was already actively interested in the structure of flowers and the classification of plants. So, some of the information contained in the Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum can be found in the unfinished manuscript of that period De Ingressu botaniam (from the Latin - “About the beginning of botany”): there are drawings related to the classification system of Tournefore , as well as redrawn illustrations showing the structure flowers, from the work of Wayan on pollination ^[5] .

Drawings by Karl Linnaeus from the manuscript of Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum . Linnaeus signed them in Latin, in italics, highlighting those explanations that related to the “great analogy ... between plants and animals” .

Figure 1. Hermophroditic ( female, androgynous ) flower: a) pedicel , b) corolla , or marriage bed , c) crown of a column [modern term - stigma ], or vulva , d) column , or vagina , funnel, e) fruit, box , or ovary , f) stamens , or seminal vessels , g) apices [modern term - anthers ], or testicles .
Figure 2. Male flower: a) apices [modern term - anthers ], or testicles , b) stamens , or seminal vessels , c) corolla and calyx , or marriage bed .
Figure 3. Female flower: a) the vulva , the crown of the column [modern term - stigma ], b) the vagina , funnel, column , c) the ovary , the germ of the fetus.
Figure 4. Male plant, no fruits on such a plant.
Figure 5. The female plant is completely different from the male one [in that on it all the flowers bear fruit]. [It is also shown how the wind that blows on the plant in Figure 4 transfers pollen to the plant shown in Figure 5.]
Figure 6. A plant on which there are both flowers and fruits at the same time [meaning that on this plant there are male flowers that do not bear fruit and female flowers from which the fruits develop] ^{[6] [7]}

In his Autobiography , Linnaeus writes that the immediate reason for writing the Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum was the performance at the end of 1729 at Uppsala University (where Linnaeus was studying at that time) by the librarian George Wallin with a philological dissertation related to botany. Since Linnaeus did not have the opportunity to take a personal part in the discussion, he outlined information about what “in fact” the relationship of plants of different sexes was in writing ^[8] .

One of the main sources for the Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum was the publication in 1709 by Wayan De sponsaliorum arborum ^[9] (from the Latin - “On tree marriages”), which was available in the library of professor of theology Olof Celsius (1670-1756). Celsius was an amateur botanist; together with Linnaeus, they made many botanical excursions around Uppsala, and from the middle of 1729 Linnaeus lived at his house ^[10] .

Sexual reproduction in plants in Vayan’s book was stated as requiring no evidence, but in reality, as of 1729, the question of sexes in plants was not widespread in science ^[11] . Vayan’s ideas attracted Linnaeus, because with their help he received the key to building a unified system of living nature: both for the animal kingdom and for the plant kingdom, the mechanism of sexual reproduction (that is, the mechanism that distinguished them from inanimate nature) turned out to be the same - and, that thereby, the abyss that always existed between these kingdoms was overcome ^[12] . Possessing wide practical knowledge in the field of botany, Linnaeus in his work combined the examples of sexual reproduction in plants known to him with the ideas of Wayan ^[11] .

Karl Linney presented the manuscript of his composition as a New Year’s present at the end of December 1729 to Professor Olof Celsius ^[1] , writing in the foreword: “I was not born a poet, but to some extent a botanist, and for this reason I give the annual fruit of a small harvest that God sent to me ... " ^[8]

Praeludia ... aroused great interest in the academic circles of Uppsala, in particular, it was drew the attention of the most authoritative botanist of Uppsala University Professor Olof Rudbeck Jr. ^[8] (1660-1740) - especially after the performance of Linnaeus in the Uppsala scientific community with a new version of his essay ^[1] . In May 1730, under his supervision, Linnaeus began teaching as a demonstrator in the university’s botanical garden, and in June Rudbeck the Younger hired him as a home teacher for his children with free housing and meals, as well as cash allowances ^[1] .

Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum consists of 30 brief provisions ^[13] (“canons”) ^[3] . The work is written mostly in Swedish , partly in Latin . The content of the essay is already mentioned quite a lot in the text that is placed on the title page: “Karl Linnaeus, who is engaged in medicine and botany of the royal scholarship holder, Introduction to plant engagement, which explains their physiology, shows gender, opens the way of fertilization, and also the very essence of the analogy of plants with animals ” ^[14] .

Linnaeus’s work is a review of opinions on the field of plants — from the authorities of antiquity, Theophrastus (3rd century BC) and Pliny the Elder (1st century AD), to the botanists of the early 18th century, Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708 ) and Wayan (1669-1722) ^[15] . In addition to these scientists, research in the field of sex in plants was by the English botanist (1599-1680) and the German botanist Rudolf Camerius (1665-1721), but with their works Linnaeus, most likely, until the middle of the XVIII century was not a sign ^[9] .

In the essay, the functions of various parts of the flower are described in sufficient detail in accordance with the ideas of Wayan, while the auxiliary role of the petals and the fundamental role of pistils and stamens are indicated. Linnaeus wrote that the petals themselves do not make any contribution to the reproduction of plants, but serve only as a “marriage bed,” while pestles and stamens play the most important role in reproduction and therefore are the most essential parts of the flower (“brides” and “ suitors "respectively). The role of Vayan in the study of sex in plants was emphasized especially: “The incomparable Vayan worked on this issue and surpassed all others,” wrote Linnaeus ^[16] .

Linnaeus himself wrote about the content of his essay in the preface: “These few pages discuss the great analogy that should be found between plants and animals in the reproduction of their families in a similar way ...” ^[8]

The work of Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum shows that at the end of 1729 - beginning of 1730, Linnaeus reached a clear understanding of the field of plants ^[1] . The idea of ​​this essay on a single concept of sexual reproduction in plants and animals formed the basis of the famous “ System of Nature ”, which was a new milestone in the development of natural science ^[3] , and the conclusion that the organs directly involved in reproduction are the most important for the plant and it is on their analysis should be based on a botanical classification that forms the basis of the sexual system for classifying plants ^{[1] [17]} (the “Linnaeus system”), first published in 1735 and actively used in natural science from the mid-18th to the end of the 19th century ^[18] . The fifth chapter of the book of Linnaeus Philosophia Botanica (1751) - one of his main works and one of the fundamental works on modern botanical systematics - is largely a retelling of those ideas that were first expressed by him in the Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum ^[19] .

The first publication of the essay took place only in 1908 ^[2] . In 1905-1913, a five-volume (in six books) collected works of Karl Linnaeus was published in Sweden ; Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum was published in the first issue of the fourth volume:

• Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum // Skrifter af Carl von Linné: Utgifna af Kungl. svenska vetenskapsakademien: [ Swede. ] / Öfversatt till Svenska språket af Th. M. Fries . - Upsala: Almqvist & Wiksells boktryckeri-a.-b., 1908. - Bd. 4, Nr. 1 . - S. 1-26. - 341 s.

In 2007 (on the occasion of the 300th birthday of Linnaeus), the issued facsimiles of manuscripts with translations of the text into Swedish and English ^[4] :

• Förspel till växternas bröllop = Prelude to the betrothal of plants: faksimil med svensk transkription och engelsk översättning av Præludia sponsaliorum plantarum 1729 = facsimile with a Swedish transciption and an English translation of Præludia sponsaliorum plantarum 1729 / av X. Wootz & K. Östlund. - Uppsala : Uppsala universitetsbibliothek, 2007. - 103, [40] p. - (Scripta minora Bibliothecae Regiae Universitatis Upsaliensis, ISSN 0282-3152; 12). - ISBN 9789150619546 .

• Bazilevskaya N. A. , Belokon I. P. , Scherbakova A. A. Chapter 3. Systematics of plants // A Brief History of Botany / Otv. ed. L.V. Kudryashov. - M .: Nauka, 1968 .-- S. 26–41. - 311 p. - (Proceedings of the Moscow Society of Naturalists. Volume XXXI. Department of Biology. Section of Botany). - 8500 copies.
• Bobrov E.G. Karl Linney. 1707-1778 . - L .: Nauka , 1970 .-- 285 p. - 7000 copies.
• Linnaeus K. Philosophy of Botany : [ arch. March 8, 2016 ] / Per. with latin. N. N. Zabinkova , S. V. Sapozhnikova, ed. M. E. Kirpichnikova ; ed. preparation. I.E. Amlinsky . - M .: Nauka, 1989 .-- 456 p. - ("Classics of science." Subseries "Monuments of the history of science"). - ISBN 5-02-003943-8 .

• . Carl Linné (von) : [ arch. February 12, 2016 ] // Svenskt biografiskt lexikon : [ Swede. ] . - Stockholm , 1980-1981. - Bd. 23. - S. 700.
• Stafleu FA Linnaeus and the linnaeans: The spreading of the ideas in systematic botany, 1735-1789: [ eng. ] . - Utrecht: Oosthoek's Uitgenersmaatschappij NV, 1971. - xvi, 386 p., 71 p. fig. - (Regnum vegetabile, vol. 79). - ISBN 978-9060460641 .

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