Species Plantarum (Latin for "The Species of Plants") is a book byCarl Linnaeus, originally published in 1753, which lists everyspecies ofplant known at the time, classified intogenera. It is the first work to consistently applybinomial names and was the starting point for thenaming of plants.
Species Plantarum[Note 1] was published on 1 May 1753 by Laurentius Salvius in Stockholm, in two volumes.[1][2][Note 2] A second edition was published in 1762–1763,[1] and a third edition in 1764, although this "scarcely differed" from the second.[4] Further editions were published after Linnaeus' death in 1778, under the direction ofKarl Ludwig Willdenow, the director of theBerlin Botanical Garden; the fifth edition was titled "fourth edition" and was published by Willdenow in four volumes, 1798 (1), 1800 (2), 1801 (31), 1803 (32), 1804 (33), 1805 (41), 1806 (42), rather than the dates printed on the volumes themselves.[5]
BeforeSpecies Plantarum, this plant was referred to as "Plantago foliis ovato-lanceolatis pubescentibus, spica cylindrica, scapo tereti"; Linnaeus renamed itPlantago media.
Species Plantarum was the first botanical work to consistently apply thebinomial nomenclature system of naming to any large group of organisms (Linnaeus'tenth edition ofSystema Naturae would apply the same technique to animals for the first time in 1758). Prior to this work, a plant species would be known by a long polynomial, such asPlantago foliis ovato-lanceolatis pubescentibus, spica cylindrica, scapo tereti (meaning "plantain with pubescent ovate-lanceolate leaves, a cylindrical spike and a terete scape")[6] orNepeta floribus interrupte spicatis pedunculatis (meaning "Nepeta with flowers in a stalked, interrupted spike").[7] InSpecies Plantarum, these cumbersome names were replaced with two-part names, consisting of a single-word genus name, and a single-wordspecific epithet or "trivial name"; the two examples above becamePlantago media andNepeta cataria, respectively.[6][7] The use of binomial names had originally been developed as a kind ofshorthand in a student project about the plants eaten by cattle.[8]
After the specific epithet, Linnaeus gave a short description of each species, and asynonymy. The descriptions were careful and terse, consisting of few words in small genera; inGlycyrrhiza, for instance, the three species (Glycyrrhiza echinata,Glycyrrhiza glabra and "Glycyrrhiza hirsuta",[Note 3] respectively) were described as "leguminibus echinatis", "leguminibus glabris" and "leguminibus hirsutis".[10]: 89
Because it is the first work in which binomial nomenclature was consistently applied,Species Plantarum was chosen as the "starting point" for thenomenclature of most plants (the nomenclature of somenon-vascular plants and allfungi uses later starting points).[6]
Species Plantarum contained descriptions of the thousands of plant species known to Linnaeus at the time. In the first edition, there were 5,940 names, fromAcalypha australis toZygophyllum spinosum.[11] In his introduction, Linnaeus estimated that there were fewer than 10,000 plant species in existence;[12] there are now thought to be around 400,000 species of flowering plants alone.[13]
^Its full title isSpecies plantarum, exhibentes plantas rite cognitas ad genera relatas, cum differentiis specificis, nominibus trivialibus, synonymis selectis, locis natalibus, secundum systema sexuale digestas.
^The book was actually published in two volumes, the first being on 24 May and the second on 16 August. However, for practical purposes, the dates of issue for volumes was arbitrarily set on 1 May, see Stearn, W.T. (1957), The preparation of theSpecies Plantarum and the introduction of binomial nomenclature, in: Species Plantarum, A Facsimile of the first edition, London, Ray Society: 72 and ICN (Melbourne Code)[3] Art. 13.4 Note 1: "The two volumes of Linnaeus' Species plantarum, ed. 1 (1753), which appeared in May and August, 1753, respectively, are treated as having been published simultaneously on 1 May 1753."
