The Botany of Iceland - 01.12.1942, Blaðsíða 13

THE PTERIDOPHYTA AND SPERMATOPHYTA OF ICELAND
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tion to such dubious records. Localities are often given for the plants.
Babington’s Revision enumerates 433 Flowering Plants, and 34 Vascular
Cryptogams. Only vascular plants are mentioned in Babington’s paper.
In the summer of 1868 the Danish botanist Chr. Gronlund made a
journey to Iceland in order to collect Mosses and Lichens. After his
return be published a list of his finds, and in 1874 he wrote a paper in
Botanisk Tidsskrift, Vol. 8, under the title: “Bidrag til Oplysning om
Islands Flora. 3. Hojere Kryptogamer og Fanerogamer”. Gronlund’s
list is based on Babington’s afore-mentioned revised list and on a col-
lection of about 100 species gathered by Gronlund himself during his
stay in Iceland in 1868. Gronlund includes 317 Flowering Plants and
S Vascular Cryptogams which, in his opinion are certain for Iceland,
and many of the species entered in Babington’s list are omitted as
being very dubious.
Again in 1876 Gronlund visited Iceland and stayed there for nearly
3 months; on his journey he visited Southwest, West and North Ice-
land. In 1881 he published his “Islands Flora”. This book contains
descriptions of a total of 357 Vascular Plants. The descriptions are
short and no proper keys to the determinations are found. In some
cases the descriptions seem to have been made upon Danish plants, and
therefore do not agree very well with the Icelandic specimens. Other
papers were published by Gronlund on the Icelandic Flora, see List of
Literature, but the above-mentioned “Islands Flora” may be considered
his most important.
As will be seen, much work had been done on the Icelandic Flora,
but still a more systematic floristic investigation of the various parts of
Iceland was lacking, and it was the famous Danish botanist Prof.
Eugen Warming who took the initiative in arranging such an investiga-
tion. One of the first to collect plants on his journeys through Iceland,
at Warming’s request, was an Icelandic student Thorvaldur Thoroddsen,
later the renowned geologist; he collected a considerable material most
of which was sent to the Botanical Museum in Copenhagen. Others
collected material, thus the Swedish algologist Count Strömfelt visited
Iceland in 1883, and besides Algæ, collected Phanerogams, and even
found several species new for Iceland, according to his own statement
21, but of these several are introduced species, and some had been
found in Iceland before. Strömfelt published a paper: “Islands karl-
vaxter”, 1884, see the Literature List.
In 1884 and 1886 the Danish Fishery Expert Arthur Feddersen
travelled in Iceland in order to study the freshwater fishery. On his