THE ELEMENTS AND AFFINITIES OF THE 

 ICELANDIC FLORA 



Eythor Einarsson 



Museum of Natural History, Reykjavik, Iceland 



The scientific investigation of the Icelandic flora started a little more than two 

 centuries ago with the observations by Eggert Olafsson and Bjarni Palsson 

 during their journeys through Iceland in the years 1752-57. In their travelogue 

 (Olafsson and Palsson, 1 772) considerable information is given on floristics and 

 about 130 species of vascular plants are mentioned. 



The first scientific treatise on the Icelandic flora, however, was written by 

 the Dane O. Fr. Muller and pubhshed in 1770. It was based entirely on the 

 investigations and collections made in Iceland by J. G. Konig in 1764-65, and 

 in it 337 species of vascular plants are mentioned. The first Icelandic Excur- 

 sion Flora was written by Oddur Hjaltalin and pubhshed in 1830. This flora 

 was based only partly on Hjaltalin's own investigations, but mostly on a 

 Danish manual by J. W. Hornemann (1821), which also contained descrip- 

 tions of all Icelandic spermatophytes known at that itme. In his flora, 

 Hjaltahn records 337 species of vascular plants from Iceland. In 1871, 

 C. C. Babington pubhshed A Revision of the Flora of Iceland, based on his 

 own investigations of the Icelandic flora and all previously published plant 

 lists from Iceland, together with information extracted from the herbaria of 

 Icelandic plants preserved in Copenhagen by Joh. Lange. In his paper, 

 Babington states that the Icelandic flora is essentially European; only 62 

 species are found which do not grow in the British Isles, nearly all the 

 species inhabit Scandinavia and not more than 3 species are decidedly Arctic. 

 Babington finally records 467 species of vascular plants as found in Iceland. 



During the years 1870-85, Chr. Gronlund pubhshed some papers on the 

 Icelandic flora, the most important one being his Islands Flora (Gronlund, 

 1881), where 357 species of Icelandic vascular plants are described. In a 

 later paper Gronlund (1884) adds nine species to this number and states that 

 the number of Icelandic vascular plants given by Babington (1871) and some 

 other authors of previous Icelandic plant hsts is much too high. In this same 

 paper, Gronlund (loc. cit.) compares the flora of Iceland to that of Greenland, 

 Scandinavia and the Faeroes. His conclusions are practically the same as 

 those of Babington, i.e. that the Icelandic flora is mostly north European 

 and afl the vascular plants with the exception of five species are found in 



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