9 / 508
GUNNERIA 80, 2016
7
Per Magnus Jørgensen, Einar Weidemann og Eli Fremstad
ABSTRACT
Jørgensen, P.M., Weidemann, E. & Fremstad, E. 2016.
Flora Norvegica
by J.E.
Gunnerus. In Norwegian, and with comments. Gunneria 80. 505 pp.
This is the first version in Norwegian of Norway’s first flora which was published
in Latin in two volumes in 1766 and 1776 (the second part posthumously, by the
nephew N.D. Gunnerus) by bishop Johan Ernst Gunnerus (1718–1773) of the
Nidaros diocese. He was a well-educated man (in Copenhagen, Halle, and Jena)
but he never studied botany. Nevertheless, he felt a religious and patriotic duty
to write a flora. He was greatly inspired and supported by his contemporary Carl
von Linné who admired his work. Gunnerus includes 1118 numbers in the flora,
of which some species (one sponge, now classified as an animal) were new to
science. Gunnerus is still recognized as the author of some scientific plant names.
The flora is not systematically arranged, but apparently haphazardly, according
to when he became acquainted with the species. This is quite cumbersome, as
he covers all groups from moulds to forest trees, in free mixture. In spite of the
title, the flora covers mainly his diocese, which at Gunnerus’ time included all
regions from Romsdal in Møre and Romsdal county to east Finnmark county,
to the Russian border. From 1759 to his death he spent much time and effort on
visitations during which he often collected specimens.
Gunnerus follows the new binary nomenclature of Linné without further
discussion, but includes a range of phrase names of earlier authors. The botanical
observations are uneven and not always relevant from our perspective. There are
many misidentifications. These are particularly revealed when comparing the
flora text with his herbarium, which is now kept in herbarium TRH. Sometimes,
though, he goes into great detail when he had time to enjoy himself at the
microscope, e.g. when describing the function of the annulus in fern sporangia.
Usually he just repeats rather briefly previous descriptions. In principle, he claims
not to include species which he had not studied personally, a principle clearly
not upheld in the second volume. Among the cryptogams he was particularly
interested in the algae which, however, he did not understand well. More than
once, he described the same species under several different names. The herbarium