Language: Finnish
There are several unpublished manuscripts concerning flora of various Finnish areas from 18th and 19th century. Former ones are rare, however, due to the great fire of Turku (Åbo) in 1827, the only academic city at those times in Finland. The university library was also burnt. It is not known if floristic manuscripts ever existed. Today, most of the manuscripts are kept in the National Library of Finland and the Finnish Museum of Natural History, Botanical museum. Those in the National Library belong to the Societas pro Fauna et Flora Fennica, which was established in 1821. That Society financed jointly with the Alexandrian University many floristic inventories in Finland during 19th century.
One manucript by C. F. Stierwald and three (two combined to one) by C. Áemelaeus are published here. That by Stierwald from 1750’s is one of the oldest concerning Finnish flora. These all include a lot of oldest records from the area the inventories were done, viz. Ostrobothnia. Stierwald also collected Finnish names of the plants, which was not a common practice in those days.