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BOTANY.
467
The work done by Linnaeus exercised an extraordinary influence on the study
of botany in Sweden. Thanks to him, botany became a »scientia amabilis» for
the Swedish people, and he determined the main course of development for
botanical research in Sweden for the next hundred years. The numerous pupils
whom his example and instruction inspired with Enthusiasm for the scientific study
of botany, wandered far and wide to a large number of countries at that time
unexplored, searching into their vegetable world. Among the pupils of Linnaeus
the following deserve special mention: P. Löfling (1729/56), who visited Spain,
P. Kalm (1716/79), who carried on investigations in North America, F.
Hasselquist (1722/52), who made researches in Asia Minor, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt,
and finally P. Forskål (1732/63), celebrated for his travels in Egypt and Arabia.
The most eminent, however, of all these explorers of natural science was K. P.
Thunberg (1743/1828), who attained a world-wide celebrity by his travels in
South Africa and Japan, the floras of which countries he described.
E. Acharius (1757/1819) turned his attention to the study of lichens, and
is regarded as the founder of descriptive lichenology. O. Swartz (1760/1818),
after extensive travels in North America and the West Indies, published a number
of very meritorious works, of which those dealing with orchids, ferns, and mosses
are of the greatest importance. These two scientists were not actual pupils of
Linnaeus, but they were in complete unison with his scientific views; the Linnæan
epoch in a strict sense may be said to close with them.
At the commencement of the nineteenth century botanists who may be said
to inaugurate a new era — lasting till about 1850 — made their appearance on
the scene. G. Wahlenberg (1780/1851), one of the most original among Swedish
botanists since Linnaeus, was the most independent of this new school. His special
field of investigation was alpine vegetation, in Lappland, Switzerland, and the
Carpathians. By dividing up Scandinavia for the purposes of his investigations
into a number of districts, and by showing how the characteristics of the
vegetation in these differ in accordance with the climatic conditions, he introduced
new, and very important, points of view for the study of the vegetation of a
country. With Humboldt he shares the honour of being the founder of botanical
geography as a science, his work »Flora Lapponica» being epoch-making in that
department. Unfortunately Wahlenberg did not establish any school of botanists,
so that phytogeographical work in Sweden languished after his death, not to be
revived until the latter part of the century.
Fresh developments were made in the systematics of the Phanerogamica;
here Elias Fries (1794/1878) was preeminent and succeeded in collecting around
him numbers of pupils. The several species were subjected to a more thorough
examination than Linnaeus had been able to effect; many of them were subdivided
into several differing species, whereby the conception of species has been
considerably extended in scope. Elias Fries also drew up a natural system,
embracing much that has been adopted by later writers. In his studies of species he
was followed by a number of pupils, amongst others Th. M. Fries (born 1832)
and K. J. Lindeberg (1815/1900). He also exercised a wide-spread influence
through the medium of K. J. Hartman (1790/1849), who published a
Scandinavian Flora in 1820, which has run through no less than eleven editions and
greatly contributed towards spreading an interest in botany throughout the country.
Another branch of botanical science that in Sweden came to the front about
the same time was the investigation of cryptogams, Sweden possessing at this time
two authorities in that department, viz., K. A. Agardh (1785/1859), who studied
algae more especially, and Elias Fries, who was one of the founders of mycology,
contributing to the subject numerous works, of which Systema Mycologicum deserves
to be noted in particular. Thanks to the two men just named, a lively interest in
the study of cryptogams arose among Swedish botanists, that has survived down to
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