HISTORICAL NOTES 0\ 

 THE BOTANICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE FÆROES 



BY 



EU G. WARMING. 



THERE are hardly any records concerning the vegetation of the 

 Færoes earlier than the 18tli century; as what Lucas Debes, 

 Rector of Thorshavn (1651), tells us is very little. But we have a 

 few notes on the subject dating as far back as the latter period 

 of the 18th century. Thus two Færoese piants — Scilla verna 

 and Anagallis tenella — are figured and described in the Flora 

 Danica for the years 1771 and 1794 respectively, and later on several 

 others were figured, especially after Lyngbye's visit to the Islands. 

 In the years 1781 — 1782, Jens Kristian Svabo visited the Færoes 

 at the instance of the Danish Government for the purpose of inves- 

 tigation, with a view to publishing a physico-economical descrip- 

 tion of the Islands. His MS., consisting of seven large volumes in 

 quarto, has never been published, but it is to be found in the 

 Royal Library, Copenhagen. In it he deals amongst other things 

 both with the piants and with the agricultural conditions of the 

 Færoes. 



Nicolai Mohr, a native of the Færoes, is said to have studied 

 botany, but his Natural History of Iceland (1786) contains only a 

 very few notes on piants from the Færoes. 



In 1800 a larger work on the subject was published by Jørgen 

 Landt — for several years a clergyman in the Færoes — who while 

 pursuing the divinity course in Copenhagen had also made a study 

 of botany. It is generally supposed that Mohr contributed to this 

 work, and also that Landt in writing it made considerable use of 

 Svabo's MS. He enumerates in it over 300 species of piants, some 

 of which must, however, according to Rostrup and the new in- 

 vestigations be omitted or at least considered doubtful. 



Botany of the Færoes. 1 



