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Linnaeus and Haller were almost exact contemporaries. Linnaeus believed in the fixity of species. Haller, on the basis of his continuing fieldwork [Haller was climbing the alps from his teen years on, collecting plants and noting how they varied with environment and altitude], emphatically did not and was constantly throwing rocks at the crown of the emperor of botany, Linnaeus. Haller's ecological and experimental criteria for determining the taxonomic status of variable plant groups lacked only cytogenetics to resemble what we today call biosystematics....
Keep in mind, furthermore, [that] while everyone else was taken up with the beauty and convenience of the Linnaean sexual system and his binary names, Haller would have none of it. He continued to use the pre-Linnaean diagnostic phrases to double as the names of the species; he thought the Linnaean classification artificial, and he did not like Linnaeus' genera. This was sad because his Swiss flora was beautiful. It described the country, climate, habitats, and ecology, was illustrated, and described the plants. But it was crucified by its ponderous and dated nomenclature and its dissentient classification. Although the supporting Haller philosophy was prophetic, it was passed by.
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During his lifetime, his principal research was in animal physiology and anatomy. He also wrote fiction and poetry.
"an erudite, annotated chronological listing of all (so it is said) botanical publications to his time"
Isley
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