Linnaeus's plant classification, Systema Naturae

Linnaeus launched his career in 1735 with a system for classifying plants based on their reproductive structures.

After reading a book about the sexual life of flowers, he reached the conclusion that stamens and pistils must be the most important characters for classifying plants. He studied the plants and formed a system which divided them into 24 classes based on their sexual structures. The 24th consisted of plants without flowers, the cryptogams.

The sexual system was first presented in Linnaeus' famous production Systema Naturae in 1735. Georg Dionysius Ehret's illustration shown here depicts the characters Linnaeus used to determine 24 classes of plants. Linnaeus arranged plants according to his own sexual system, classifying them into groups based on the number and form of their male and female parts. It was his goal to group all known plants according to his classification system.

Ehret's illustration is a powerful insight to the greatest and most prolific botanical artist of the 1700s. While his finished watercolours are without doubt magnificent, his sketches reveal the artist behind them. They show the time he took to understand a subject before depicting it on paper, as well as his notes and thoughts, scrutinising not just the adult plant but the seeds and flowers. Ehret (1708–1770) was a lover of plants first, and an artist second.

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