331 SWEDISH PROVINCIAL FLORAS Swedish provincial Floras – a survey of their history and present status

Swedish provincial floras have a history dating back to the 17th century. During the Linnaean era very few were written, but there was an upgrowth in the early 19th Century with Göran Wahlenberg. Towards the middle and end of the 19th Century many provincial Floras were written because of the needs of the secondary schools. A new upgrowth took place in the 1920s to 1940s largely by academic botanists in Uppsala. From the 1970s provincial Floras have been published or are under work for most of the 24 Swedish provinces, now largely based upon a broad amateur floristic interest. PRE-LINNAEAN FLORAS The history of Flora writing in Sweden starts before Linnaeus. In the 17th Century the great polymath Olof Rudbeck the elder was the dominant figure at Uppsala university. Amongst many other things, he was the founder of the botanic garden and the author of the massively ambitious botanical work Campus Elysii, most of which was destroyed in the Uppsala fire in 1702. Rudbeck fostered a particular interest and knowledge in botany in a number of medical students, which subsequently led to some botanical activity in the Swedish provinces. After Rudbeck the elder died in 1702, the botanical interest he stimulated lived on with his son Olof Rudbeck the younger an