Rare original offprint of Laestadius’s Latin study of plant variation, chiefly observed in northern Sweden, preserved in its original blue wrappers and representing the scientific work of a remarkable Sámi scholar.

Bibliographic Details

Author: Lars Levi Laestadius (1800–1861).
Title: Loca Parallela Plantarum, seu Animadversiones Physiologico-Botanicae de variis Plantarum variationibus, praecipue in Svecia Boreali observatis...
Place: Uppsala, although no place stated in the offprint.
Publisher: No publisher stated.
Date: 1839.
Edition: Rare separate offprint from Nova Acta Regiae Societatis Scientiarum Upsaliensis, series 2, volume 11.
Pagination: Pages 205–296, retaining the sequential pagination of the journal issue.
Language: Latin.
Binding: Original publisher’s blue card wrappers.
Provenance: Ownership inscription “Westergren 1929” to the front pastedown.
Format: Quarto.
Size: Approximately 27.6 × 22.2 cm.

Condition

Good. The original blue card wrappers show some wear, including slight fraying along the paper covering the spine and some sunning. Mainly light scattered foxing throughout the text. A very pale stain is present within the upper gutter margin of the leaves, together with light general crinkling to the paper. Ownership inscription “Westergren 1929” to the front pastedown. The offprint remains sound and substantially well preserved.

Please ask if you require a more detailed condition report, or examine the gallery images closely.

Description

A rare original botanical offprint by Lars Levi Laestadius, one of the most remarkable figures in nineteenth-century Scandinavian intellectual and religious life. Published in 1839 in the proceedings of the Royal Society of Sciences at Uppsala, the paper examines physiological and botanical variation in plants, with particular emphasis on observations made in northern Sweden.

Laestadius is now perhaps best remembered as the founder of the Laestadian revival movement, but he was also a highly accomplished botanist, ecologist, ethnographer and Sámi scholar. His career united scientific observation, pastoral work and close engagement with the people and landscapes of Lapland, giving his botanical writings a distinctive authority grounded in prolonged field experience.

He first undertook botanical expeditions while still a student and subsequently received support from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to travel through Skåne and Lapland, studying and drawing plants for use in Swedish scientific research. His detailed familiarity with the flora of the far north established him as an internationally respected naturalist and brought him into the scholarly networks of European botany.

The present paper, whose title may be translated broadly as “Parallel Places of Plants, or Physiological-Botanical Observations on Various Plant Variations, Chiefly Observed in Northern Sweden,” reflects Laestadius’s interest in the ways plants alter in form and character under differing environmental conditions. It therefore belongs to the early nineteenth-century development of plant physiology, classification and geographical botany.

Issued as a separate offprint from Nova Acta Regiae Societatis Scientiarum Upsaliensis, the work retains the journal’s original pagination from pages 205 to 296. Such separately issued scientific papers were commonly distributed in small numbers to authors, institutions and fellow scholars, and their fragile wrappers and specialist circulation mean that surviving examples are often considerably scarcer than the complete journal volumes from which they derive.

This copy retains its original blue card wrappers, an especially desirable feature in an ephemeral scientific publication of this date. The simple format preserves the appearance in which the paper would have circulated among contemporary botanists and learned societies.

Laestadius enjoyed recognition beyond Sweden and was associated with both the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala and the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. His standing as a botanist is further reflected in the plant species named in his honour, including Salix laestadiana, Carex laestadii and Papaver laestadianum. The standard botanical author abbreviation “Laest.” continues to identify him in taxonomic citation.

The work is additionally significant because Laestadius occupies a rare position at the intersection of Sámi history, Scandinavian science and religious reform. His botanical research cannot be separated from his intimate knowledge of the northern environment and from the wider cultural and intellectual world in which he worked as pastor, administrator and ethnographer.

A highly appealing survival for collectors of Scandinavian natural history, early ecology, botanical offprints, Sámi studies and the history of science, combining genuine rarity with an unusually distinguished and multifaceted author.

Notes

A scarce separate printing of an important contribution to the study of plant variation in northern Scandinavia, written by a scholar whose scientific achievements are often overshadowed by his later religious influence.

Original Laestadius botanical offprints are particularly desirable when preserved in their publisher’s wrappers, offering a direct link to the scholarly circulation of Scandinavian science during the 1830s.