Rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes grow horizontally; the rhizome retains the ability to allow new shoots to grow upwards. A rhizome is the main stem of the plant. A stolon is similar to a rhizome, but a stolon sprouts from an existing stem, has long internodes, generates new shoots at the end, such as in the strawberry plant. In general, rhizomes have short internodes, send out roots from the bottom of the nodes, generate new upward-growing shoots from the top of the nodes. A stem tuber is a thickened part of a rhizome or stolon, enlarged for use as a storage organ. In general, a tuber is high in starch, e.g. the potato, a modified stolon. The term "tuber" is used imprecisely and is sometimes applied to plants with rhizomes. If a rhizome is separated each piece may be able to give rise to a new plant; the plant uses the rhizome to store starches and other nutrients.
These nutrients become useful for the plant when new shoots must be formed or when the plant dies back for the winter. This is a process known as vegetative reproduction and is used by farmers and gardeners to propagate certain plants; this allows for lateral spread of grasses like bamboo and bunch grasses. Examples of plants that are propagated this way include hops, ginger, lily of the valley and sympodial orchids; some rhizomes which are used directly in cooking include ginger, galangal and lotus. Stored rhizomes are subject to bacterial and fungal infections, making them unsuitable for replanting and diminishing stocks. However, rhizomes can be produced artificially from tissue cultures; the ability to grow rhizomes from tissue cultures leads to better stocks for replanting and greater yields. The plant hormones ethylene and jasmonic acid have been found to help induce and regulate the growth of rhizomes in rhubarb. Ethylene, applied externally was found to affect internal ethylene levels, allowing easy manipulations of ethylene concentrations.
Knowledge of how to use these hormones to induce rhizome growth could help farmers and biologists producing plants grown from rhizomes more cultivate and grow better plants. Some plants have rhizomes that grow above ground or that lie at the soil surface, including some Iris species, ferns, whose spreading stems are rhizomes. Plants with underground rhizomes include gingers, the Venus flytrap, Chinese lantern, western poison-oak and Alstroemeria, the weeds Johnson grass, Bermuda grass, purple nut sedge. Rhizomes form a single layer, but in giant horsetails, can be multi-tiered. Many rhizomes have culinary value, some, such as zhe'ergen, are consumed raw. Aspen Corm Mycorrhiza Media related to Rhizomes at Wikimedia Commons The Rhizome Collective for sustainable living
Starch
Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants as energy storage, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diets and is contained in large amounts in staple foods like potatoes, maize and cassava. Pure starch is a white and odorless powder, insoluble in cold water or alcohol, it consists of two types of molecules: the branched amylopectin. Depending on the plant, starch contains 20 to 25% amylose and 75 to 80% amylopectin by weight. Glycogen, the glucose store of animals, is a more branched version of amylopectin. In industry, starch is converted into sugars, for example by malting, fermented to produce ethanol in the manufacture of beer and biofuel, it is processed to produce many of the sugars used in processed foods. Mixing most starches in warm water produces a paste, such as wheatpaste, which can be used as a thickening, stiffening or gluing agent; the biggest industrial non-food use of starch is as an adhesive in the papermaking process.
Starch can be applied to parts of some garments before ironing. The word "starch" is from a Germanic root with the meanings "strong, strengthen, stiffen". Modern German Stärke is related; the Greek term for starch, "amylon", is related. It provides the root amyl, used as a prefix for several 5-carbon compounds related to or derived from starch. Starch grains from the rhizomes of Typha as flour have been identified from grinding stones in Europe dating back to 30,000 years ago. Starch grains from sorghum were found on grind stones in caves in Ngalue, Mozambique dating up to 100,000 years ago. Pure extracted wheat starch paste was used in Ancient Egypt to glue papyrus; the extraction of starch is first described in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder around AD 77–79. Romans used it in cosmetic creams, to powder the hair and to thicken sauces. Persians and Indians used it to make dishes similar to gothumai wheat halva. Rice starch as surface treatment of paper has been used in paper production in China since 700 CE.
In addition to starchy plants consumed directly, by 2008 66 million tonnes of starch were being produced per year worldwide. In 2011 production was increased to 73 million ton. In the EU the starch industry produced about 8.5 million tonnes in 2008, with around 40% being used for industrial applications and 60% for food uses, most of the latter as glucose syrups. In 2017 EU production was 11 million ton of which 9,4 million ton was consumed in the EU and of which 54% were starch sweeteners. US produced about 27,5 million ton starch in 2017 of which about 8,2 million ton high fructose syrup and 6,2 million ton glucose syrups and 2,5 million ton starch products, the rest of the starch was used for producing ethanol. Most green plants use starch as their energy store; the extra glucose is changed into starch, more complex than glucose. An exception is the family Asteraceae. Inulin-like fructans are present in grasses such as wheat, in onions and garlic and asparagus. In photosynthesis, plants use light energy to produce glucose from carbon dioxide.
The glucose is used to generate the chemical energy required for general metabolism, to make organic compounds such as nucleic acids, lipids and structural polysaccharides such as cellulose, or is stored in the form of starch granules, in amyloplasts. Toward the end of the growing season, starch accumulates in twigs of trees near the buds. Fruit, seeds and tubers store starch to prepare for the next growing season. Glucose is soluble in water, binds with water and takes up much space and is osmotically active. Glucose molecules are bound in starch by the hydrolyzed alpha bonds; the same type of bond is found in the animal reserve polysaccharide glycogen. This is in contrast to many structural polysaccharides such as chitin and peptidoglycan, which are bound by beta bonds and are much more resistant to hydrolysis. Plants produce starch by first converting glucose 1-phosphate to ADP-glucose using the enzyme glucose-1-phosphate adenylyltransferase; this step requires energy in the form of ATP. The enzyme starch synthase adds the ADP-glucose via a 1,4-alpha glycosidic bond to a growing chain of glucose residues, liberating ADP and creating amylose.
The ADP-glucose is certainly added to the non-reducing end of the amylose polymer, as the UDP-glucose is added to the non-reducing end of glycogen during glycogen synthesis. Starch branching enzyme introduces 1,6-alpha glycosidic bonds between the amylose chains, creating the branched amylopectin; the starch debranching enzyme isoamylase removes some of these branches. Several isoforms of these enzymes exist, leading to a complex synthesis process. Glycogen and amylopectin have similar structure, but the former has about one branch point per ten 1,4-alpha bonds, compared to about one branch point per thirty 1,4-alpha bonds in amylopectin. Amylopectin is synthesized from ADP-glucose while mammals and fungi synthesize glycogen from UDP-glucose. In addition to starch synthesis in plants, starch can be synthesized from non-food starch mediated by an enzyme cocktail. In this cell-free biosystem, beta-1,4-glycosidic bond-linked cellulose is hydrolyzed to cello
Fat
Fat is one of the three main macronutrients, along with carbohydrate and protein. Fats molecules consist of carbon and hydrogen atoms, thus they are all hydrocarbon molecules. Examples include cholesterol and triglycerides; the terms "lipid", "oil" and "fat" are confused. "Lipid" is the general term, though a lipid is not a triglyceride. "Oil" refers to a lipid with short or unsaturated fatty acid chains, liquid at room temperature, while "fat" refers to lipids that are solids at room temperature – however, "fat" may be used in food science as a synonym for lipid. Fats, like other lipids, are hydrophobic, are soluble in organic solvents and insoluble in water. Fat is an important foodstuff for many forms of life, fats serve both structural and metabolic functions, they are a necessary part of the diet of most heterotrophs and are the most energy dense, thus the most efficient form of energy storage. Some fatty acids that are set free by the digestion of fats are called essential because they cannot be synthesized in the body from simpler constituents.
There are two essential fatty acids in human nutrition: linoleic acid. Other lipids needed by the body can be synthesized from other fats. Fats and other lipids are broken down in the body by enzymes called lipases produced in the pancreas. Fats and oils are categorized according to the number and bonding of the carbon atoms in the aliphatic chain. Fats that are saturated fats have no double bonds between the carbons in the chain. Unsaturated fats have one or more double bonded carbons in the chain; the nomenclature is based on the non-acid end of the chain. This end is called the n-end, thus alpha-linolenic acid is called an omega-3 fatty acid because the 3rd carbon from that end is the first double bonded carbon in the chain counting from that end. Some oils and fats are therefore called polyunsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats can be further divided into cis fats, which are the most common in nature, trans fats, which are rare in nature. Unsaturated fats can be altered by reaction with hydrogen effected by a catalyst.
This action, called hydrogenation, tends to break all the double bonds and makes a saturated fat. To make vegetable shortening liquid cis-unsaturated fats such as vegetable oils are hydrogenated to produce saturated fats, which have more desirable physical properties e.g. they melt at a desirable temperature, store well, whereas polyunsaturated oils go rancid when they react with oxygen in the air. However, trans fats are generated during hydrogenation as contaminants created by an unwanted side reaction on the catalyst during partial hydrogenation. Saturated fats can stack themselves in a packed arrangement, so they can solidify and are solid at room temperature. For example, animal fats tallow and lard are solids. Olive and linseed oils on the other hand are liquid. Fats serve both as energy sources for the body, as stores for energy in excess of what the body needs immediately; each gram of fat when burned or metabolized releases about 9 food calories. Fats are broken down in the healthy body to release their constituents and fatty acids.
Glycerol itself can be converted to glucose by the liver and so become a source of energy. There are many different kinds of fats. All fats are derivatives of fatty acids and glycerol. Most fats are glycerides triglycerides. One chain of fatty acid is bonded to each of the three -OH groups of the glycerol by the reaction of the carboxyl end of the fatty acid with the alcohol. Water is eliminated and the carbons are linked by an -O- bond through dehydration synthesis; this process is called esterification and fats are therefore esters. As a simple visual illustration, if the kinks and angles of these chains were straightened out, the molecule would have the shape of a capital letter E; the fatty acids would each be a horizontal line. Fats therefore have "ester" bonds; the properties of any specific fat molecule depend on the particular fatty acids. Fatty acids form a family of compounds that are composed of increasing numbers of carbon atoms linked into a zig-zag chain; the more carbon atoms there are in any fatty acid, the longer its chain will be.
Long chains are more susceptible to intermolecular forces of attraction, so the longer ones melt at a higher temperature. Fatty acid chains may differ by length categorized as short to long. Short-chain fatty acids are fatty acids with aliphatic tails of fewer than six carbons. Medium-chain fatty acids are fatty acids with aliphatic tails of 6–12 carbons, which can form medium-chain triglycerides. Long-chain fatty acids are fatty acids with aliphatic tails of 13 to 21 carbons. Long chain fatty acids are fatty acids with aliphatic tails of 22 or more carbons. Any of these aliphatic fatty acid chains may be glycerated and the resultant fats may have tails of different lengths from short triformin to long, e.g. cerotic acid, or hexacosanoic acid, a 26-carbon long-chain saturated fatty acid. Long chain fats are exemplified by tallow. Most fats found in foo
Sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. The various types of sugar are derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose and galactose. "Table sugar" or "granulated sugar" refers to a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. In the body, sucrose is hydrolysed into glucose. Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants, but sucrose is concentrated in sugarcane and sugar beet, making them ideal for efficient commercial extraction to make refined sugar. Sugarcane originated in tropical Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, is known of from before 6,000 BP, sugar beet was first described in writing by Olivier de Serres and originated in southwestern and Southeast Europe along the Atlantic coasts and the Mediterranean Sea, in North Africa, Macaronesia, to Western Asia. In 2016, the combined world production of those two crops was about two billion tonnes. Other disaccharides include lactose. Longer chains of sugar molecules are called polysaccharides.
Some other chemical substances, such as glycerol and sugar alcohols, may have a sweet taste, but are not classified as sugar. Sucrose is used in prepared foods, is sometimes added to commercially available beverages, may be used by people as a sweetener for foods and beverages; the average person consumes about 24 kilograms of sugar each year, or 33.1 kilograms in developed countries, equivalent to over 260 food calories per day. As sugar consumption grew in the latter part of the 20th century, researchers began to examine whether a diet high in sugar refined sugar, was damaging to human health. Excessive consumption of sugar has been implicated in the onset of obesity, cardiovascular disease and tooth decay. Numerous studies have tried to clarify those implications, but with varying results because of the difficulty of finding populations for use as controls that consume little or no sugar. In 2015, the World Health Organization recommended that adults and children reduce their intake of free sugars to less than 10%, encouraged a reduction to below 5%, of their total energy intake.
The etymology reflects the spread of the commodity. From Sanskrit शर्करा, meaning "ground or candied sugar," "grit, gravel", came Persian shakar, whence Arabic سكر, whence Medieval Latin succarum, whence 12th-century French sucre, whence the English word sugar. Italian zucchero, Spanish azúcar, Portuguese açúcar came directly from Arabic, the Spanish and Portuguese words retaining the Arabic definite article; the earliest Greek word attested is σάκχαρις. The English word jaggery, a coarse brown sugar made from date palm sap or sugarcane juice, has a similar etymological origin: Portuguese jágara from the Malayalam ചക്കരാ, itself from the Sanskrit शर्करा. Sugar has been produced in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times and its cultivation spread from there into modern-day Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass, it was not plentiful or cheap in early times, in most parts of the world, honey was more used for sweetening. People chewed raw sugarcane to extract its sweetness. Sugarcane was a native of Southeast Asia.
Different species seem to have originated from different locations with Saccharum barberi originating in India and S. edule and S. officinarum coming from New Guinea. One of the earliest historical references to sugarcane is in Chinese manuscripts dating to 8th century BCE, which state that the use of sugarcane originated in India. In the tradition of Indian medicine, the sugarcane is known by the name Ikṣu and the sugarcane juice is known as Phāṇita, its varieties and characterics are defined in nighaṇṭus such as the Bhāvaprakāśa. Sugar remained unimportant until the Indians discovered methods of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals that were easier to store and to transport. Crystallized sugar was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas, around the 5th century CE. In the local Indian language, these crystals were called khanda, the source of the word candy. Indian sailors, who carried clarified butter and sugar as supplies, introduced knowledge of sugar along the various trade routes they travelled.
Traveling Buddhist monks took sugar crystallization methods to China. During the reign of Harsha in North India, Indian envoys in Tang China taught methods of cultivating sugarcane after Emperor Taizong of Tang made known his interest in sugar. China established its first sugarcane plantations in the seventh century. Chinese documents confirm at least two missions to India, initiated in 647 CE, to obtain technology for sugar refining. In the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and China, sugar became a staple of cooking and desserts. Nearchus, admiral of Alexander of Macedonia, knew of sugar during the year 325 B. C. because of his participation in the campaign of India led by Alexander. The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century CE described sugar in his medical treatise De Materia Medica, Pliny the Elder, a 1st-century CE Roman, described sugar in his Natural History: "Sugar is made in Arabia as well, but Indian sugar is better, it is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, it crunches between the teeth.
It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut. Sugar is used only for medical purposes." Crusaders brought sugar back to Europe after their campaigns in the Hol
Selenium in biology
Although it is toxic in large doses, selenium is an essential micronutrient for animals. In plants, it sometimes occurs in toxic amounts as forage, e.g. locoweed. Selenium is a component of the amino acids selenomethionine. In humans, selenium is a trace element nutrient that functions as cofactor for glutathione peroxidases and certain forms of thioredoxin reductase. Selenium-containing proteins are produced from inorganic selenium via the intermediacy of selenophosphate. Selenium is an essential micronutrient in mammals, but is recognized as toxic in excess. Selenium exerts its biological functions through selenoproteins, which contain the amino acid selenocysteine. Twenty-five selenoproteins are encoded in the human genome; the glutathione peroxidase family of enzymes catalyze reduction of hydrogen peroxide and organic hydroperoxides: 2GSH + H2O2 → GSSG + 2 H2OThe two H atoms are donated by thiols in a process that begins with oxidation of a selenol side chain in GSH-Px. The organoselenium compound ebselen is a drug used to supplement the action of GSH-Px.
It functions as a catalyst for the destruction of hydrogen peroxide. A related selenium-containing enzyme in some plants and in animals generates reduced thioredoxin, a dithiol that serves as an electron source for peroxidases and the important reducing enzyme ribonucleotide reductase that makes DNA precursors from RNA precursors. Selenium plays a role in the functioning of the thyroid gland, it participates as a cofactor for the three thyroid hormone deiodinases. These enzymes activate and deactivate various thyroid hormones and their metabolites, it may inhibit Hashimotos's disease, an auto-immune disease in which the body's own thyroid cells are attacked by the immune system. A reduction of 21% on TPO antibodies was reported with the dietary intake of 0.2 mg of selenium. Some microorganisms ulitize selenium in formate dehydrogenase. Formate is produced in large amounts in the hepatic mitochondria of embryonic cells and in cancer cells by the folate cycle. Formate is reversibly oxidized by the enzyme formate dehydrogenase: HCO2− → CO2 + H+ + 2 e− Thioredoxin reductase uses a cysteine-selenocysteine pair to reduce the disulphide in thioredoxin.
The selenocysteine is arranged in an unusual Sec-His-Glu catalytic triad. Certain species of plants are considered indicators of high selenium content of the soil, since they require high levels of selenium to thrive; the main selenium indicator plants are Astragalus species, prince's plume, woody asters, false goldenweed The substance loosely called selenium sulfide is the active ingredient in some anti-dandruff shampoos. The selenium compound kills the scalp fungus Malassezia, which causes shedding of dry skin fragments; the ingredient is used in body lotions to treat Tinea versicolor due to infection by a different species of Malassezia fungus. Selenium may be measured in blood, serum or urine to monitor excessive environmental or occupational exposure, confirm a diagnosis of poisoning in hospitalized victims or to assist in a forensic investigation in a case of fatal overdosage; some analytical techniques are capable of distinguishing organic from inorganic forms of the element. Both organic and inorganic forms of selenium are converted to monosaccharide conjugates in the body prior to being eliminated in the urine.
Cancer patients receiving daily oral doses of selenothionine may achieve high plasma and urine selenium concentrations. Although selenium is an essential trace element, it is toxic. Exceeding the Tolerable Upper Intake Level of 400 micrograms per day can lead to selenosis; this 400 microgram Tolerable Upper Intake Level is based on a 1986 study of five Chinese patients who exhibited overt signs of selenosis and a follow up study on the same five people in 1992. The 1992 study found the maximum safe dietary Se intake to be 800 micrograms per day, but suggested 400 micrograms per day to not only avoid toxicity, but to avoid creating an imbalance of nutrients in the diet and to account for data from other countries. In China, people who ingested corn grown in selenium-rich stony coal have suffered from selenium toxicity; this coal was shown to have selenium content as high as 9.1%, the highest concentration in coal recorded in literature. Symptoms of selenosis include a garlic odor on the breath, gastrointestinal disorders, hair loss, sloughing of nails, fatigue and neurological damage.
Extreme cases of selenosis can result in cirrhosis of the liver, pulmonary edema, death. Elemental selenium and most metallic selenides have low toxicities because of their low bioavailability. By contrast and selenites are toxic, having an oxidant mode of action similar to that of arsenic trioxide; the chronic toxic dose of selenite for humans is about 2400 to 3000 micrograms of selenium per day for a long time. Hydrogen selenide is an toxic, corrosive gas. Selenium occurs in organic compounds, such as dimethyl selenide, selenomethionine and methylselenocysteine, all of which have high bioavailability and are toxic in large doses. Selenium poisoning of water systems may result whenever new agricultural runoff courses through dry, undeveloped lands; this process leaches natural soluble selenium compounds into the water, which may be concentrated in new "wetlands" as the water evaporates. High selenium levels produced in this fashion have been found to have c
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist and zoologist who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin, his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus. Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland in southern Sweden, he received most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and published the first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands, he returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals and minerals, while publishing several volumes, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe at the time of his death. Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message: "Tell him I know no greater man on earth."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: "With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly." Swedish author August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist." Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum and "The Pliny of the North". He is considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany and zoology, the abbreviation L. is used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for a species' name. In older publications, the abbreviation "Linn." is found. Linnaeus's remains comprise the type specimen for the species Homo sapiens following the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, since the sole specimen that he is known to have examined was himself. Linnaeus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707, he was the first child of Christina Brodersonia. His siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, Emerentia Linnæa, his father taught him Latin as a small child.
One of a long line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister, the curate of the small village of Stenbrohult in Småland. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Samuel Brodersonius. A year after Linnaeus's birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult; the family moved into the rectory from the curate's house. In his early years, Linnaeus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and showed flowers to Linnaeus and told him their names. Soon Linnaeus was given his own patch of earth. Carl's father was the first in his ancestry to adopt a permanent surname. Before that, ancestors had used the patronymic naming system of Scandinavian countries: his father was named Ingemarsson after his father Ingemar Bengtsson; when Nils was admitted to the University of Lund, he had to take on a family name. He adopted the Latinate name Linnæus after a giant linden tree, lind in Swedish, that grew on the family homestead.
This name was spelled with the æ ligature. When Carl was born, he was named Carl Linnæus, with his father's family name; the son always spelled it with the æ ligature, both in handwritten documents and in publications. Carl's patronymic would have been Nilsson, as in Carl Nilsson Linnæus. Linnaeus's father began teaching him basic Latin and geography at an early age; when Linnaeus was seven, Nils decided to hire a tutor for him. The parents picked a son of a local yeoman. Linnaeus did not like him, writing in his autobiography that Telander "was better calculated to extinguish a child's talents than develop them". Two years after his tutoring had begun, he was sent to the Lower Grammar School at Växjö in 1717. Linnaeus studied going to the countryside to look for plants, he reached the last year of the Lower School when he was fifteen, taught by the headmaster, Daniel Lannerus, interested in botany. Lannerus gave him the run of his garden, he introduced him to Johan Rothman, the state doctor of Småland and a teacher at Katedralskolan in Växjö.
A botanist, Rothman broadened Linnaeus's interest in botany and helped him develop an interest in medicine. By the age of 17, Linnaeus had become well acquainted with the existing botanical literature, he remarks in his journal that he "read day and night, knowing like the back of my hand, Arvidh Månsson's Rydaholm Book of Herbs, Tillandz's Flora Åboensis, Palmberg's Serta Florea Suecana, Bromelii Chloros Gothica and Rudbeckii Hortus Upsaliensis...."Linnaeus entered the Växjö Katedralskola in 1724, where he studied Greek, Hebrew and mathematics, a curriculum designed for boys preparing for the priesthood. In the last year at the gymnasium, Linnaeus's father visited to ask the professors how his son's studies were progressing. Rothman believed otherwise; the doctor offered to have Linnaeus live with his family in Växjö and to teach him physiology and botany. Nils accepted this offer. Rothman showed Linnaeus that botany was a serious sub
