A University Garden Older Than Linnaeus
The Linnaeus Garden in Uppsala, Sweden, was originally Uppsala University’s botanic garden. Professor of medicine Olof Rudbeck the Elder established it in 1655, introducing plants through contacts he had made while studying in Leiden in the Netherlands. The Uppsala fire of 1702 damaged the undertaking, and the garden did not regain its earlier scale for many years.
Carl Linnaeus became a university professor in 1741. His autobiographical account records a redistribution of teaching responsibilities with Nils Rosén at the end of the year, with Linnaeus taking charge of the garden, materia medica, dietetics, natural history and related subjects. Reconstruction served both the medical students’ need for living plant specimens and Linnaeus’s expanding botanical research.
The Greenhouse Completed in 1743
Linnaeus asked the university in 1742 to restore the grounds and build a greenhouse. The university agreed to reorganize the garden and alter the director’s residence. Architect Carl Hårleman provided the overall design, with planting areas and paths dividing the grounds. Linnaeus’s account places completion of the greenhouse and two wings in 1743 and records the introduction of many foreign plants. In 1744, planting continued to be organized according to his classification system.
University support made construction possible, while keeping plants alive required continuing resources. Pulteney reports that Linnaeus later secured additional gardeners and an annual supply of 100 cartloads of firewood. Staff and heating fuel were recurring necessities for this northern garden alongside its buildings.
Gardeners and Cultivation at Different Temperatures
Head gardener Dietrich Neitzel had cultivated foreign plants at George Clifford’s Hartekamp estate. Linnaeus’s scientific judgments depended on such cultivation skills. Seeds sent to Uppsala first had to germinate, grow and survive winter before their plants could become subjects of observation.
The greenhouse contained spaces with different temperatures. Laurel, lemon and bitter orange were kept in the cool room and moved outdoors in warmer weather. The hot room housed banana, coffee and other plants from warm regions, with another greenhouse space suited to succulents. Stoves, flues and sloping south-facing glass supplied heat. Gardeners’ daily work turned the building’s divisions into viable environments for different plants.
The 1745 garden dissertation, presided over by Linnaeus with Samuel Nauclér as respondent, describes this management in detail. Sunlight could raise the hot room to 30 degrees; the gardener normally maintained 20–25 degrees and used the stove to make up for declining winter warmth. Thermometers, supervision and fuel supplies jointly supported the living plant collection.
Seed Exchange as Research Cooperation
Plants arrived through an international correspondence network. Before listing plants, the 1745 dissertation thanked collaborators who gathered and sent seeds and specimens, naming Bernard de Jussieu in Paris, Adriaan van Royen in Leiden, Johann Jakob Dillenius in Oxford and London merchant Peter Collinson, among others. The list connects scholars, gardens and merchants, showing how the collection grew beyond Linnaeus’s own collecting.
This success also created pressure on space. Drawing on early documents, Förberg notes that Linnaeus reported overcrowding of rare plants to the university in 1747 and requested alternative accommodation for the gardener. The former residential space was subsequently adapted for greenhouse and other uses. Acquiring plants, expanding facilities and university administrative decisions remained closely connected.
Turning Cultivation into Comparable Records
Published in 1748, Hortus Upsaliensis recorded foreign plants Linnaeus had introduced between 1742 and 1748. The work named in its title included distinguishing characteristics, synonyms, native locations, cultivation arrangements and descriptions of rare plants. Living specimens could thus be compared with other scholars’ names and records. Pulteney describes indexes of botanical, Swedish and medicinal names, as well as local plants.
Research extended beyond cataloging. The preface discussed Uppsala’s climate and seasons, using seven consecutive years of observations of oak leafing to identify the local range of dates. Greenhouse cultivation, outdoor observation and written organization formed a working sequence: preserving material, comparing it over time and making the results available to students and colleagues.
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The Research Garden and Its Later Restoration
After Linnaeus, crowding and site conditions led the university to seek more space. Between 1787 and 1802, the botanic garden gradually moved to part of Uppsala’s castle gardens. The old grounds changed use, and the Swedish Linnaeus Society restored their Linnaean appearance in the 1920s using historical documentation.
The site experienced its foundation in 1655, reconstruction in the 1740s and later historical restoration. The greenhouse completed in 1743 provided cultivation conditions for plants acquired across regions. Cooperation among professors, gardeners, university administrators and distant exchange partners kept these facilities producing teaching and research material.