b SCANDINAVIANS AND 



casion. At last he dared to undei'take the work, and hopes that 

 the mstitution for which it has been prepared and the anthor's 

 contemporaries in general will receive it as it is, and have forbear- 

 ance with its shortcomings. 



After accepting the invitation, the writer had to choose a sub- 

 ject. As he did not dare to undertake the answering of the first 

 question of the day, because it would have been too hard a task 

 and he would have had too many competitors, and as it was only 

 reluctantly he had agreed to make a short address, in which he 

 would try to answer the second, he hardly knew what to write 

 about. His national i3ride helped him in choosing the subject, 

 and he will tr^^ to answer the question: "Have the Scandinavians 

 contributed anything to the knowledge of the flora, of North 

 America?" 



Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Icelanders, and the descendants 

 of Swedes who settled in Finland a few hundred j^ears ago, are in 

 reality but one nation, although ruled by four different crowned 

 heads. Many of these Scandinavians have chosen, like the present 

 writer, to settle on this side of the Atlantic and to swear allegiance 

 to the stars and stripes. They have not thereby lost their nation- 

 ality, nor its virtues. As Scandinavians have also been counted a 

 few men of Scandinavian parentage (of the first generation), if this 

 was known to the writer. 



With North America the writer understands not only the 

 United States and Canada, but the whole continent north of the 

 Isthmus of Panama and adjacent islands, hence comprising also 

 Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies. This view is the 

 one generally adopted by American botanists, since the acqusi- 

 tiou of Porto Rico and the overtaking of the Panama Canal work 

 by the United States. From that time the heaviest work on the 

 flora of these countries has shifted from Europe to America. 



When trying to write a sketch of the Scandinavians more or 

 less connected with the historj^ of botany of North America, the 

 writer naturally has to deal with this history and with the history 

 of botany in general. It may not be amiss to state that the his- 

 tory of botany is here taken in a rather narrow sense, including 

 only that of systematic botanj^, plant geography and related 

 branches, not of plant physiology, nor general morphology, etc. 



The best history of botany (or we may say, of botanists) in 

 the librarv of the New York Botanical Garden is Emil Winckler's 



