Carl Linnaeus introduced modern taxonomy in 1753 with his book Species Plantarum, which cataloged the global flora using a binary naming system for plant species. This system assigned each species a genus and epithet. His 1758 publication of the 10th edition of Systema Naturae extended this binary naming convention to the global fauna. The binary names aimed to simplify fieldwork and education by replacing the earlier descriptive naming phrases, which had become lengthy with the increasing number of newly discovered species in the 17th-18th centuries.

1. LINNAEAN ERA
By: Sara Ferrer &
Mikayla van den Brenk

2. STARTING POINT OF MODERN
TAXONOMY
For nomenclatural
reasons two works of Carl
Linnaeus (1707–1778, Fig.
4) are regarded as the
starting points of modern
botanical and zoological
taxonomy.

3. The global flora Species
Plantarum, published in
1753 and the tenth edition
of Systema Naturae in
1758 including global
fauna.

4. The reason for this is that
Linnaeus introduced in
these books a binary form
of species names called
"trivial names" for both
plants and animals

5. For each species he
created an epithet that
could be used together
with the genus name. The
trivial names were
intended for fieldwork
and education, and not to
replace the earlier phrase
names.

6. The phrase names
included a description of
the species that
distinguished it from
other known species in
the genus.

7. With an expanded
knowledge of the global
fauna and flora through
17th and 18th century
scientific expeditions, a
large number of new
species were found and
named, and more terms
had to be added to each
phrase name.

8. By the time of Linnaeus
the situation was really
bad. Linnaeus counted
8530 species of flowering
plants in 1753.