Chicago Botanic Garden

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This is the sculpture of Carlos Linnaeus ... the father of Taxonomy. ... in the Chicago Botanic Garden... He is shown reaching eagerly toward the plants in his path with a collector’s enthusiasm. The prominent bird in the sculpture — a golden plover, which can fly for thousands of miles — refers to the many students of Linnaeus who traveled the globe collecting plants for him to name.

Carolus Linnaeus [1701-1778] was a 18th century Swedish botanist who perfected bionomial nomenclature, the universal system of naming plants ... that is still used today. In Linnaeus's system of naming plants, each plant is given a two-part scientific name, a binomial. the first name represents the genus and the second name identifies it's species. A cultivar refers to a variety of plant that does not grow naturally in the wild but was selected and developed for particular characteristics. Each plant also has a common name [nickname], which varies from region to region.

Below are some photographs taken at the Chicago Botanic Garden ...
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