The Botany of Iceland - 01.12.1942, Side 9

A. General Part
THE BOTANICAL INVESTIGATION OF
ICELAND. HISTORICAL NOTES
Of the vegetation and flora of Iceland from the time before the
middle of the eighteenth century very little is known. Some of the old
Icelandic handwritings or printed books, it is true, contain descriptions
of plants mostly with a special view to their quality as drugs or as
curatives for maladies. One of the most interesting manuscripts dates
from the beginning of the seventeenth century and was written by Jón
Guðmundsson, with the sumame The Scholar, who was born in the
year 1574, in Ófeigsfjörður in Northwest Iceland. Jón Guðmundsson’s
book has the title “Um þau grös og urter, sem vaxa í íslandi og þeirra
dygdir og náttúru” [On Grass and Herbs which grow in Iceland, their
Virtues and Nature]1. It may be called the first Icelandic Flora, in so
far as Jón Guðmundsson gives a fair description of many of the plants
and also mentions where they are growing, besides, naturally, describing
their “nature and virtues” in detail. Altogether about fifty species of
plants are described.
In Iceland medical books and herbals were often simply transla-
tions from other languages, also often containing, besides foreign plants,
a number of Icelandic plants. Most of these books, however, were
filled with all sorts of superstition and mysticism and were of little value
from a botanical point of view.
The first attempt at a more thorough scientific investigation of the
Icelandic flora was made about the middle of the eighteenth century.
In the year 1752 two Icelandic students, Eggert Ólafsson and Bjami
Pálsson, were sent from Copenhagen to Iceland, with instructions to
travel through the whole country and investigate the nature of the
land, the mode of life of the population etc. It took the two students
5 years to carry out their task, and in 1772 the results of their investiga-
tions were published under the title “Vice-lavmand Eggert Olafsens
og Land-Physici Biarne Povelsens Reise igiennem Island, foranstaltet
1 See also ISLANDICA, vol. XV, Ithaca, New York, 1924.