His parents wanted him to be a priest, but he rejected the collar to study natural order. Swede Carl Linnaeus, a medical doctor who treated syphilis, tried to organize the world's flora and fauna.

Rudbeckia hirta. Solanum lycopersicum. Acer saccharum. Have you ever seen these names on plant tags or seed packets and wondered where they came from? We can thank Carl Linnaeus for taxonomy, the ...