Swedish Museum of Natural History

Within the Regnellian herbarium, the historically interesting and scientifically important Swartz herbarium is a separate collection comprising approximately 6000 specimens of phanerogams and ferns, mainly from the West Indies.
The swedish botanist Peter Olof Swartz (1760-1818) collected plants in Jamaica and Hispaniola on a journey between 1784 and 1786. Today, the Swartz herbarium contains large parts of the material he collected on this journey, but also collections by Forsström, Banks, Euphrasén, Freyreis (ferns), Swedérus, West, Ryan and other contemporary botanists.
Swartz' publications Nova Genera et Species Plantarum seu Prodromus (1788), Observationes botanicae (1791) and Flora Indiae occidentalis (1797-1806) were all published as a result of his visit to the Caribbean. Two publications about Swartz and his work, are currently in progress in cooperation between Bertil Nordenstam, Roger Lundin and Mia Ehn Salter at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, and Thomas Zanoni of the New York Botanical Garden.

Loans from the Swartz herbarium are generally not allowed, but the material has been registered and is presented in a searchable database. Information about Swartz' type material from the Caribbean (phanerogams and ferns) has also been incorporated in the searchable botanical type collection database at the Department of Phanerogamic Botany. On request scanned images, or xerox copies of particular specimens can be provided.

• Images of Swartz herbarium sheets