C. A. M. LINDMAN, A LINNEAN HERBARIUM. 3 



Delima, and he shall have 10 others quite as rare as this. 

 for ray specimen is without fruit, which his has». 



Even from the comparatively small haul which Linnaeus 

 brought home from his journey in Lappland in 1732 he gave 

 specimens to Prof. J. Burman of Amsterdam. 1 



In the botanical department of the Naturhistoriska Riks- 

 museet (Stockholm) the author has during the last two years 

 looked for plants from Linné and has succeeded in collecting 

 a considerable number. They have been found for the most 

 part amongst bundles of plants and in cases from old times 

 (the latter part of the 18th century), which in the course of 

 years (presumably about 1860) had been packed away in 

 lumber-rooms, owing to want of space, and were of course 

 bound to suffer injury from dust, soot, damp, and insects. 

 Thanks however to the indestructable paper and the old 

 method of gluing the whole plant fast, these old specimens 

 are comparative^ well preserved, and many plants look as 

 if they had been quite recently prepared. 



These are precious treasures from the great epoch of our 

 natural history, which are thus again brought to light. Lin- 

 naeus himself has laid stress on the importance of possessing 

 material which might serve as a control in case a fresh in- 

 vestigation should be required, and especially with regard to 

 his own plants and original specimens he . has uttered the 

 following words: »Ovärderliga i sig själfva, med tiden mer 

 och mer begärliga».- He clearly realized that his life and 

 activity had been intimately bound up with the whole future 

 development of botany. His collections are still in demand 

 and are constantly being consulted not merely as relics from 

 the time when the »princeps botanicorum» himself was living 

 in the realm of Flora, but as the most reliable aid to the 

 study of his writings and as being as it were answers out of 

 his own mouth to vexed botanical questions. 



The collection of plants, which has thus been designated 

 by the name »Linnaean herbarium», consists firstly of plants 

 which LinnaBus himself possessed and furnished with names 







1 Th. M. Fries, Ett Linnéanskt herbarium i Paris, K. Vet.-Akad:s 

 Förhandlingar 1861, p. 255- — The little collection in question is doutbless 

 to be found in the Herb. Delessert in Geneva. 



- Invaluable in themselves, in greater and greater request with the 







