Volume One

A review of "Flora Nordica, Vol 1"

This is the first volume of a “work in progress”, of which only two volumes have been published so far. The ostensible goal of the Flora Nordica project is to describe all species of vascular plants found in the wild in the Nordic countries here defined as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Svalbard (Greenland is not included). This volume comprises mosses, ferns and their allies, and gymnosperms. Flora Nordica seems to “shadow” Nationalnyckeln, a similar and even more ambitious project which has been discontinued due to lack of funding. In contrast to Nationalnyckeln, with its lavish color illustrations, the Flora only contains black-and-white illustrations, so we're dealing with a typical reference work for professional botanists, not something for the general public. A curious twist is that the work is in English, yet contains vernacular names in the Nordic languages only! Probably a must have if you are a scientist specializing in Scandinavian ferns or conifers, otherwise hardly worth the effort.