Bit late, but then I’m not very good at remembering the birthdays of the living! Anyhow the 23rd May saw the 300th birthday of Sweden’s most illustrious son Carolus Linnaeus.

Linnaeus is largely responsible for modern taxonomy – including the Latin genus/species system we now use to label all living organisms. And as an aside appears to have been a bit preoccupied with sex, with the result that many names of plants and animals in his classification system are closely related to sexual organs and acts. Oh and who reacted to his detractors by naming weeds after them!