Olof Peter Swartz

(1760–1828)


A botanist and physician, Swartz studied under Linnaeus the younger. He traveled to the West Indies, North America, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Cuba between 1783 and 1787. On his return he was appointed professor at a new school of gardening in Stockholm owned by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and eventually was appointed to the academy’s highest position, secretary. Swartz is most famous for his taxonomic studies of groups of plants in the context of their worldwide distribution.

Right: HI Archives portrait no. 1b.
Olof Peter Swartz (1760–1828). Observationes Botanicae quibus Plantae Indiae Occidentalis (Erlangen, 1791).

This pupil of Linnaeus’ son travelled in Sweden, North America, the West Indies and along the coast of South America. This work presents a systematic description of the plants of the West Indies.
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