Most floras and botanical authorities indicate that Linnaeus named the genus "Rudbeckia" to honor both the father and son Rudbecks, world famous professors at Sweden's Uppsala University, the University Linnaeus attended. In several 1737 publications Linnaeus does indicate that the Rudbeckia genus name honors both father and son, but there is no question that Linnaeus' original intent was to honor Rudbeck the younger, his professor, mentor, employer, and patron, for he states that intent in a 1731 letter to Rudbeck the younger and it is that letter which I believe takes precedence over any later attribution.

We know that in the spring of 1730, Olas Rudbeck the younger appointed Linnaeus (even though he was just a second year Uppsala University medical student), to replace himself as lecturer in botany and to lead the prestigious spring Botanic Garden demonstrations. After the course was over, Rudbeck hired Linnaeus to tutor his three youngest sons and in June of 1730, Rudbeck invited Linnaeus to live in his house and eat at his table. Rudbeck went even further in the interest of this young man he considered so brilliant by obtaining a "special grant from the Senate" for Linnaeus.

Rudbeck had thus rescued Linnaeus from a student life of utter poverty, for until Linnaeus received Rudbeck's largess, he had been walking in shoes patched with paper in their soles and he was barely finding enough food to fuel his brain and its quest for understanding nature.

Linnaeus was deeply and openly more than grateful for Rudbeck's recognition and assistance. On July 29, 1731, Linnaeus wrote Rudbeck about a new plant that Linnaeus had just named for Rudbeck:

So long as the earth shall survive and as each spring shall see it covered with flowers, the Rudbeckia will preserve your glorious name.

I have chosen a noble plant in order to recall your merits and the services you have rendered, a tall one to give an idea of your stature, and I wanted it to be one which branched and which flowered and fruited freely, to show that you cultivated not only the sciences but also the humanities. Its rayed flowers will bear witness that you shone among savants like the sun among the stars; its perennial roots will remind us that each year sees you live again through new works. Pride of our gardens, the Rudbeckia will be cultivated throughout Europe and in distant lands where your revered name must long have been known. Accept this plant, not for what it is but for what it will become when it bears your name. (Quotation from Blunt's Linnaeus, The Compleat Naturalist.)

(Click to see specimens that Linnaeus named Rudbeckia.)

Rudbeck the younger was 71 when Linnaeus wrote the July 1731 letter to him. Rudbeck the elder had died in 1702, five years before Linnaeus was born. Both Rudbecks were eminent botanists with world-wide reputations and certainly both would have been idolized by Linnaeus many years before he even went to Uppsala University.

Linnaeus' letter to Rudbeck the younger clearly dedicates the genus to him, but in 1737 Linnaeus did publish a dedication to both father and son Rudbeck on page 420 of Hortus Cliffortianus, (a flora describing George Clifford's vast plant collection). Linnaeus there indicated,

"I have named plants of this genus [Rudbeckia] for the most noble Rudbecks, their knowledge of genera renowned throughout the world".

Why would Linnaeus have changed his dedication of the Rudbeckia genus? My assumption is that he matured in the six years between 1731 and 1737. As a young student full of enthusiasm for his professor (Rudbeck the younger), Linnaeus was eager to honor him. Six years and much maturing and experience later, Linnaeus realized that courtesy and custom would make it imperative that he name the plant not just for one of the two great botanists and professors but for both. However, it is clear that the genus was named in 1731 for Olas Rudbeck the younger. Nothing can change that.

Another mystery regarding Rudbeckia has given me many interesting research hours: How did the 24 year old Linnaeus acquire the plant specimen that he named "Rudbeckia"? I at first thought it a good possibility that Rudbeckia came to Linnaeus from America through the eminent botanist, John Bartram (1699-1777), often called the Father of American Botany. Linnaeus came to know Bartram through the British botanist Peter Collinson, to whom Bartram sent many North American plants, some of which Collinson probably sent to Linnaeus. Linnaeus did consider Bartram the "greatest natural botanist in the world". Although Bartram was an astute observer and collector early on in his life, his fame had not spread to Collinson until about 1733 and then Collinson contracted with him to begin shipments of plants as often as he could. The first shipment arrived in England in 1734, two years after Linnaeus named Rudbeckia.

I thought that another possible source for the Rudbeckia type specimen was John Clayton who supplied Linnaeus' friend Jan Gronovius with many North American botanical specimens. However, Linnaeus did not meet Gronovius until 1735, and it appears that Clayton did not begin his serious plant collecting until the early 1730s, after Linnaeus had named Rudbeckia.

Mark Catesby was another great early American botanist, and his collecting dates, plant distributions, and connections made me think that he would be the most likely source for the Rudbeckia specimens that Linnaeus described and named. Catesby botanized in the colonies and the Bahamas from 1712 to 1719 and 1722 to 1726. We know that Catesby was shipping plants and seeds to Peter Collinson at least by 1724: "On 5 January 1723/24, from Alexander Skene’s house on the Ashley River near present-day Summerville in South Carolina, Catesby sent Collinson a selection of seeds that... had been collected with difficulty." (Catesby Commemorative Trust, "Resources"). We know that Collinson commonly sent plants to Linnaeus.

Perhaps the most important document indicating that Catesby discovered Rudbeckia is McMillan and Blackwell's, "THE VASCULAR PLANTS COLLECTED BY MARK CATESBY IN SOUTH CAROLINA: COMBINING THE SLOANE AND OXFORD HERBARIA". On page 13 of that document it is indicated that Catesby collected Rudbeckia hirta. That collection would have been made prior to 1727 (when Catesby returned to England) and that collection, I thought, might very well have been the specimen that Linnaeus described and named in 1731. I emailed Patrick McMillan about my suppositions and received the following reply,

Mark Catesby did not send any plants to Linnaeus. The two did not correspond to the best of my knowledge and Linnaeus never looked at a single specimen of Catesby’s.... The specimen [Linnaeus] based his description from is listed in Species Plantarum as "Cult[ivated] in Sweden,"... and he gives habitat as Virginia, Canada – so there is no way what he had seen was Catesby material as all of Catesby’s collections were from SC, GA, FL, Bahamas....

Who discovered Rudbeckia hirta [apparently the first Rudbeckia described]? Who knows, it was likely one of the earliest plants sent back to England to be cultivated in English Gardens and while it may well have been Catesby that brought it back I have found no records to indicate that.

Having eliminated Bartram, Clayton, and perhaps Catesby (I will not be surprised at all to find out that somehow Catesby's collections of Rudbeckia wound up with Linnaeus), we are left with just one sure piece of information: Linnaeus named and described Rudbeckia. The best answers we have to the questions of who shipped the plants or (more likely) the seeds from America and how they made their way to Uppsala from America are that the early 1700s were feverish collecting and gardening years in Europe as ships brought exotic species from all over the world. Often labeling was destroyed by rats and salty air or plants were never even labeled. Many unnamed plants grew in many European gardens just waiting for a Linnaeus to catalog them. See Andrea Wulf's, Brother Gardeners, the well-told tale of collecting and gardening in these years.

Perhaps the final word about the source of Linnaeus' Rudbeckia type specimen is given by the superb botanist, James Reveal in his 1992 book, Gentle Conquest: The Botanical Discovery of North America with Illustrations from the Library of Congress:

The original collector of many of the specimens used by Linnaeus to establish scientific names can not now be established. Only by knowing who was collecting, and where they were searching for plants, can one speculate on the original source of a given specimen.

Click to read more about Mark Catesby and click again for more Catesby information.

Click for more biographical information about Olof Rudbeck the Younger and his father.

"Laciniata" is Latin for "torn or rent", which here refers to the cut leaves.

In 1901 Aven Nelson renamed this species Rudbeckia ampla, and in 1955 the species was renamed Rudbeckia laciniata variety ampla by the eminent botanist Arthur Cronquist (of Intermountain Flora).

"Ampla", Latin for "spacious", refers to the large flower..