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"The Gardener Linné" by Nils-Erik Landell
Published 1997 by Carlsson Publishers. Box 2112, S-103 13 Sweden. "The Gardener Linné" by Nils-Erik Landell sheds light on the period Carl Linnæus lived in Stockholm. Few people know that the world-famous Swede spent three years, 1738 to 1741, residing in the Swedish capital. The book is, as Gunnar Broberg writes in the preface, a foreword to the first article published by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. That article, written by Linné and titled 'Taming Wild Plants', is now published in facsimile. And has for the first time, been fully translated from phrase names to binomials. Venturing into Linné 's world the reader will encounter nearly 300 plants - and not just flowers and herbs from the various regions of Sweden but from all over the world. All the while stressing the importance of knowing the natural habitat of a plant before planting it in your garden or indoors in a pot. A man ahead of his time, Linné was an ecologist, some 100 years before the word ecology was used. He was also a man of many talents. Landell describes the time Linné worked as a medical doctor in Stockholm - during which he was even summoned to the Queen of Sweden, in an apparent attempt to cure her cough. He was also active in treating the venereal diseases amongst men of the upper classes, using his very popular wine cure. As if all this was not enough to keep him occupied, on Sunday afternoons he worked as a nature guide in the southwestern part of Stockholm known as Hornstull. And on the lush island of Långholmen, situated in the heart of the city, one can still follow in his footsteps. In fact, Linné 's old garden plants and a dale, named after him, appear today much as they did when he first laid eyes on them. One can also visit the islands in Lake Mälaren on which he found many interesting flowers, not the least of which was the mythical mistletoe of Kungshatt - a half-parasite with a devout cult following - as desribed in several volumes by Frazer. Througout the 300 or so pages we will re-discover Sweden's capital as a garden city of the 18th century. Landell vividly describes the gardens Linné visited and tells us what has become of them today. Through the words of Landell it becomes possible to journey back to Linnné 's time. We can see the flowers Linné saw. We can wander through the hothouse at Ulriksdal Castle. We can pay a visit to Skansen, Stockholm 's famous open-air museum, whose Linnean herbs and flowers grow side by side next to the summer house once used by the scientist and philosopher Swedenborg. Or we can take a leisurely stroll through the various gardens and, if we are fortunate enough, perhaps see the flower-clock as described in Linné 's article from 1739. The timing of the book's release is especially opportune since Stockholm has been named the 1998 Cultural Capital of Europe. Nils-Erik Landell (E-mail: nils@landell.se) is a member of the board for the Swedish Linnaeus Society. "The Gardener Linné" (ISBN 91 7203 187 5) is lavishly illustrated in colour, featuring pictures of flowers, gardens, houses and old maps. Publishing date: April 14, 1997. |
