At Linnaeus University in Kalmar, there is a small part of Carl Linnaeus' botanical garden. We call it the Linnaeus Garden, and it is located on the terrace between buildings Culmen and Vita. Welcome to the inauguration on 18 August.
The first plant to be planted on the site was purple willow (Salix purpurea). The plant was a gift to Linnaeus University and came from Linnaeus’s summer residence, Hammarby, outside Uppsala. This is how the idea of a garden in the spirit of Linnaeus on the Kalmar campus was born. The garden was created by landscape architect Josefin Smedberg.
Carl Linnaeus was a botanist, physician and zoologist and is regarded as the father of modern taxonomy. Although nearly 300 years have passed since Linnaeus began the work of identifying and describing species in our natural world, the task is far from complete. Perhaps as much as half of Sweden’s insect species are still unknown. However, new molecular methods are giving us new opportunities to map the diversity of life. You will hear more about this at the inauguration of the Linnaeus Garden on Tuesday 18 August.
