Twinflower
| Linnaea borealis | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Linnaea borealis ssp. longiflora in flower, near the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Asterids |
| Order: | Dipsacales |
| Family: | Caprifoliaceae |
| Genus: |
Linnaea L. |
| Species: | L. borealis |
| Binomial name | |
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Linnaea borealis L. |
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| Subspecies | |
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Linnaea is a plant genus which has often been classified in the family Caprifoliaceae (the Honeysuckle family) but may be more accurately considered to belong to its own family, Linnaeaceae. The genus includes a single, generally boreal to subarctic woodland subshrub species, Linnaea borealis, commonly known as twinflower (sometimes written twin flower).
This plant was a favorite of Carl Linnaeus, founder of the modern system of binomial nomenclature, for whom it was named.
The genus Linnaea is now considered to include only a single, circumboreal species, Linnaea borealis, with three subspecies generally recognized:
The genus Linnaea is usually treated in the Caprifoliaceae, along with Lonicera, Symphoricarpos, and related genera, but sometimes classified in its own family Linnaeaceae, along with such similar genera as Abelia, Dipelta, Kolkwitzia, and Zabelia, but not Lonicera or Symphoricarpos.
Linnaea is one of the few kinds of plants or animals to be named after Carl Linnaeus, who knew it well from his explorations of Lapland in northern Sweden in 1732. It was his favorite plant, and as a young man, he named it "Linnæa" (now transliterated as "Linnaea"). However, in his Systema Naturae (first published in 1735), Linnaeus instead called this plant "Rudbeckia", for Olaus Rudbeck and his son Olof Rudbeck, Lapland explorers who knew the species. Later, in his Species Plantarum of 1753, Linnaeus used the genus name Rudbeckia instead for a quite different plant in the Asteraceae, still known by that name.
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