The Botany of Iceland - 01.12.1942, Blaðsíða 12
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JOHS. GRONTVED
this j'ourney were published in 1840. The botanical part has been pre-
pared by the Danish botanist Jens Vahl under the title “Observations
sur la végétation en Islande, avec une Liste des plantes que l’on suppose
exister en Islande, dressée par M. Vahl”. As will be seen from the title,
the list must be read under correction, and in many cases Vahl was in
doubt concerning the records brought home from Iceland.
Professor Charles Chardale Babington of the Cambridge University
made a short trip to Iceland in the year 1846. He stayed there in the
first half of July and investigated some parts of S.W. Iceland. The
botanical results of his j'ourney appear in a list in the Transactions of
the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, Vol. III, 1847, under the title:
“List of Plants gathered during a short visit to Iceland in 1846”.
Babington’s list is based on his own finds, and the localities of some of
the most interesting species are given; even some few species new to
Iceland are here recorded.
Again, in the year 1860, Iceland was visited by an English botanist,
Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay, who made a collection of plants, and in 1861
published a list based on Hjaltalín’s, Vahl’s and Babington’s lists, and
on his own collections. His paper: “The Flora of Iceland” contains 426
species of Phanerogams, 29 Vascular Cryptogams, and 408 other
Cryptogams. It was Lindsay’s intention to give travellers visiting Ice-
land a revised list of the plants growing there, and so stimulate the
interest in the Icelandic flora and make people collect plants which
could later be determined by competent botanists, the knowledge of the
vegetation in Iceland being thus enlarged. Though evidently exercising
much care, Lindsay has not succeeded in rooting out all errors made
by previous authors; there are still several plants left which it is most
unlikely should occur in the Icelandic flora.
Babington who already in 1847 published his list of Icelandic plants,
again in 1871 wrote a paper on the Icelandic Flora in Joumal of the
Linnean Society, Bot. Vol. XI, with the title: “A Revision of the Flora
of Iceland”. This paper contains a short but interesting description of
the Icelandic vegetation, a review of the important works on the flora,
and a list of species with notes concerning most of the species enumerat-
ed. Babington made use of information from Prof. Johan Lange in
Copenhagen, taken from the Icelandic collections preserved in the
Botanical Museum. Here special mention should be made of plants
collected by Morch, Steenstrup and Dr. Krabbe. In Babington’s list
many plants are entered which evidently are not found in Iceland and
eould not be found there, but in most cases Babington has called atten-