6 ARKIV FÖR BOTANIK. BAND 7. N:0 3. 



a very large part of the botanical collection of the Natural 

 History Museum from the 18th century. 1 



For his assistant and superintendent of his museum Al- 

 strömer had the zealous botanist Anders Dahl (1751 — 1789), 

 who during the last years of Linnaeus's life had been his pupil 

 and visitor in his house. Dahl has on every sheet in the 

 Herbar. Alströmer noted with great accuracy, from whom 

 the plant was obtained, and in the cases when he himself 

 received a plant, he has also made a note of it. We thus 

 find, that he himself received a very considerable number of 

 plants 1) from Linné (»Dahl a Linné P.»), 2) from Linné fil. 

 (»Dahl a Linné f.»), 3) from Hortus Upsaliensis while Lin- 

 naeus was still alive and during the years immediately after 

 his death. - 



The greater part of these plants are furnished besides 

 with names or other inscription by Linnaeus himself, as we 

 see from his peculiar handwriting (and precisely in the same 

 way as the plants above mentioned out of the herbarium of 

 Linné fil., see above). Their genuine origin direct from 

 Linnaeus is besides recognizable by certain peculiarities in 

 the arrangement which are characteristic of Linnaeus's great 

 herbarium. In his autograph memoirs of himself 3 Linné has 

 made the following statement as to his herbarium: »Det är 

 lagd t i ordning efter genera, species och classes med utantill 

 påskrifne nomina specifica . . . Alla dessa växter har jag in- 

 klistrade med Ichthyocolla,' 1 hvart species på ett särskildt 

 halft ark papper, och alla halfark, som höra till samma genus, 

 ii;)! 1 jag inlagde i ett helt pappersark, på hvilket jag skrifvit 

 namnet af genus och på halfarket namnet af species ... Så 

 simpel arrangering har icke blifvit påtänkt förut». 5 



1 The largest and must important collections which are besides this 

 included in the oldest herbarium of the Natural History Museum are Mon- 

 tin's and Osbeck's (both pupils of Linné), and from about 1820 Swartz's 

 and Ca8STRöm's herbaria. See below ' 



Dahl became med. dr. in Kiel and botanical demonstrator and med. 

 ad junc t us in Åbo (Finland) in the year 1786 

 :| Published hy A. Apzelii s, 182:5, p. 224. 

 edish : husbiås. 

 !' i-< arranged ae,- ( , r ,|j nL ; to genera, species, and classes, with nomina 

 specifica written on the outsidi ... I have glued all these plants with isin- 

 ies "ii a separate half- sheet of paper, and all the half-sheets 

 which belong to the same genus I have enclosed in a whole sheet of paper, 

 on which I have written the name of t lie genus and on the half-sheet the 



oame of the S] ies . . . Su imple arrangement has not been thought 



of before. 



