and raising from seed was not achieved until the 19th 
century; John Smith (1798-1888) provided in_ his 
Records of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 227-241 
(1880) a first-hand account of progress in orchid-growing 
during his lifetime. 
On his way back to Sweden from Holland in 1738, 
Linnaeus visited Paris and was conducted to Fontain- 
bleau, where the wild orchids in particular delighted him. 
Before taking up his professorship at Uppsala in October 
1741, Linnaeus with six young companions made an ex- 
pedition to Oland and Gotland at the request of the 
Swedish Estates of the Realm. The purpose of this Jour- 
ney, which extended from May to August 1741, was 
primarily economic, to search for dye-yielding and medi- 
cinal plants and to make observations on soils, minerals, 
farming, manufacturing methods and general natural 
history. These islands, then scientifically almost unex- 
plored, differ from mainland Sweden in being of lime- 
stone and having a relatively mild climate, so that they 
shelter many organisms rare or unknown on the main- 
land, among them various orchids. The two islands natu- 
rally excited Linnaeus’s eager curiosity, and he described 
them in detail in his entertaining account of the journey 
entitled Oliindsha och Gothlindska Resa (1745), of which 
an annotated English translation by Marie Asberg and 
W.'T. Stearn is now available in Biol. J. Linnean Soc. 
5: 1-220 (1973). Their orchid flora includes 22 species. 
Linnaeus visited the islands when most of the orchids 
were in full flower. As soon as he and his companions 
touched the shore of Oland on June 12 (June 1, Old 
Style, of Linnaeus’s journal) they realized that this was 
a land altogether different from the other Swedish prov- 
inces and they decided to make meticulous notes about 
everything. Their second day provided them with the 
joy of finding Ophrys insectifera, Orchis militaris, Orchis 
[ 75 | 
