# The sexual system of plants is published as a ranked key of stamens and pistils

Date: 1736

## The fact

In 1736–37 [Carl Linnaeus](/people/carl-linnaeus)’s sexual system of plants, classes by number of stamens and orders by pistils, circulated in print and in Georg Dionysius Ehret’s table, an artificial key Linnaeus himself said was not the natural system. Contemporaries found the nuptial metaphor indecent; later teachers treated the key as nature’s own hierarchy. The cohesion cost is a rigid classroom orthodoxy and a gendered metaphor laid on plants.

## Context

Artificial keys help beginners and hide relationships. Linnaeus knew the second point and still taught the first. Ehret’s plate made the metaphor unforgettable. Sharing the drawing does not erase Linnaeus’s system. Buffon attacked system as such. That quarrel is also a polarisation row. Do not treat later phylogenetic codes as this 1736 key.

## Evidence and sources

Linnean Society at https://www.linnean.org/learning/who-was-linnaeus describes the sexual system as Linnaeus’s teaching key. Britannica at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carolus-Linnaeus independently treats the sexual system as artificial and famous.

Official or archival record: Linnean Society — Who was Linnaeus? (https://www.linnean.org/learning/who-was-linnaeus; The Linnean Society of London).

## Significance

Cohesion path of modest weight and medium confidence on social harm versus teaching gain. The teaching gain of Systema 1735 remains another row.

If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Linnaeus published a sexual-system key in the mid-1730s. Not established: that he held plants to be literally married in canon law. Contribution is recorded as He designed the artificial sexual key. Ehret drew the famous table; critics called it obscene. Complex. The impact note is An artificial sexual ranking that scandalised and crowded natural systems is a cohesion path: a public split over a rigid key taught as nature. The dated heading stays The sexual system of plants is published as a ranked key of stamens and pistils on 1736-01-01, not a later statue, UNESCO listing, or school film. Printers, unnamed clerks, and later editors may appear in the same file without becoming this instrument. Later competitions, monuments, and adaptations are refused as extra lifetime acts of this person on this date.

Confidence is stated on the impact path, not hidden in adjectives. The sexual key is not Species Plantarum’s binomial access row. Mixed effects of The sexual system of plants is published as a ranked key of stamens and pistils are separate paths.

Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, museums, and adaptations are not converted into extra lifetime acts.

The contribution type is direct. The attached driver is [social-cohesion](/drivers/social-cohesion). The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself.

Shared responsibility is part of The sexual system of plants is published as a ranked key of stamens and pistils. Naming Carl Linnaeus does not delete co-authors, institutions, or later transmitters. The lag from 1736-01-01 to any measured indicator is not treated as zero. Alternative explanations — weather, other armies, later statutes, or independent cultural change — remain live where the sources do not close them.

## People

- Carl Linnaeus: https://factrail.ai/people/carl-linnaeus

## Drivers

- Social Cohesion: https://factrail.ai/drivers/social-cohesion

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carolus-Linnaeus
- https://www.linnean.org/learning/who-was-linnaeus

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/linnaeus-sexual-system-1736