390 i Flora Unveiled
Stockholm, together with one of Linnaeus’s earliest pupils, Pehr Kalm, journeyed to Russia
to collect plant material for Linneaus’s collection and the Count’s experimental garden in
Uppsala. By this time, Linneaus’s Russian ally Johann Amman had died, and Siegesbeck
had succeeded him as Professor of Botany at the Russian Academy of Sciences. As was cus-
tomary, Bielke and Kalm both brought seed packets from their own collections with them
to exchange for Russian seeds.^28 However, as chance would have it, one of the seed packets
that Count Bielke had traded for Russian material in St. Petersburg had been the packet of
Siegesbeckia that Linnaeus had relabeled Cuculus ingratus. The latter eventually found its
way to Siegesbeck, who planted a few of the seeds to see what the new species with the funny
name looked like. As soon as the plants had grown he recognized it as Siegesbeckia orientalis
and was understandably furious.
According to the second version of the story, which seems more plausible, it was Linnaeus
himself who sent the relabeled seeds directly to Siegesbeck. It is the sort of reckless impulse
that Linnaeus was prone to when he was sufficiently provoked. Although Bielke and Kalm
did their best to mediate between the two, Linnaeus never received another plant from St.
Petersburg as long as Siegesbeck was alive. When Bielke wrote to Linnaeus begging him to
apologize to Siegesbeck so as not to jeopardize future plant exchanges with the Russians,
Linnaeus adamantly refused, referring to Siegesbeck as Ingratissimus cuculus et nebulo
(“The most ungrateful cuckoo and a wretch”), perhaps the only time he ever deviated from
binomial nomenclature.^29 “I must say with Pilate,” he wrote, ‘What is written is written’ ...
I will never forgive him his roguery.” Bielke’s fears turned out to be groundless because
Linnaeus had many admirers at the Russian Academy, including Johann Georg Gmelin and
Grigorii Demidov, and he continued to receive generous collections of plant material sent to
him by other Russian botanists.
There was one last episode in the Linnaeus– Siegesbeck Punch and Judy show. By 1745,
Russian botanists had discovered a strange new plant in Siberia with small composite flow-
ers. When they dissected the individual florets of the new species they were unable to find
any stamens. Siegesbeck was ecstatic. He believed that he had finally found the evidence
disproving the sexual theory that he had been looking for, thus invalidating Linnaeus’s
sexual system of classification. The plant was hastily named Anandria siegesbeckioides in
Siegesbeck ’s honor.
Gmelin informed Linnaeus about the discovery of Anandria (“without males”), but
Linneaus was highly skeptical. However, he could not immediately comment on the finding
because Siegesbeck was keeping a tight lid on his stock of Anandria seeds, and Linnaeus was
the last person on earth to whom he would ever send them. Luckily for Linnaeus, Count
Bielke visited St. Petersburg in 1745 and managed to wangle some Anandria seeds. Linnaeus
received them with mounting excitement, sensing that a decisive victory was at hand.
Although the plants refused to flower at first, eventually they obliged, and when Linnaeus
examined the florets under a microscope, sure enough, he found the stamens! They were
small and difficult to detect, but they were unquestionably present and full of pollen. Based
on his sexual system, he identified the now- misnamed Anandia as a new member of the
genus Tu s s i l a g o. In Dissertatio Botanica de Anandria (1745), Linnaeus announced his dis-
covery, once again depriving Siegesbeck of his longed- for triumph over the sexual theory
and the sexual system.