6 SCANDINAVIANS AND 
casion. At last he dared to undertake the work, and hopes that 
the institution 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 pride helped him in choosing the subject, 
and he will try 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 hnndred years ago, are I 
reality but one nation, although ruled by four different crowned 
heads. Many of these Scandinavians havechosen, 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 @ 
few men of Scandinavian parentage (of the first generation), 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 acqusl 
tion 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 OF 
less connected with the history 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 bis- 
tory of botany is here taken in a rather narrow sense, including 
only that of systematic botany, plant geography and related 
branches, not of plant physiology, nor general morphology, et: 
The best history of botany (or we may say, of botanists) ? 
the library of the New York Botanical Garden is Emil Winckler’s 
