Prof. Karl Olov Hedberg (19 October 1923 – 24 September 2007) of

Västerås Västerås ( , , ) is a city in central Sweden on the shore of Lake Mälaren in the province of Västmanland, west of Stockholm. The city had a population of 127,799 at the end of 2019, out of the municipal total of 154,049. Västerås is the se ...

was a botanist,

taxonomist In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are give ...

, author, professor of

systematic botany Plant taxonomy is the science that finds, identifies, describes, classifies, and names plants. It is one of the main branches of taxonomy (the science that finds, describes, classifies, and names living things). Plant taxonomy is closely allied ...

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

from 1970 to 1989, and an Editor of the Flora of Ethiopia.

Career

Professor Hedberg was a pioneer in scientific knowledge on the afroalpine vegetation. Our present knowledge of this biosystem owes much to the research he and his wife Inga did on the

Rwenzori The Ruwenzori, also spelled Rwenzori and Rwenjura, are a range of mountains in eastern equatorial Africa, located on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The highest peak of the Ruwenzori reaches , and the range ...

and other high mountains in East Africa. His breakthrough views were based on their systematic fieldwork in the late 1940s. 'Features of Afroalpine Plant Ecology' remains a landmark in equatorial alpine ecological research up till today, and is still available in a facsimile re-edition of 1995.Flowers of the Moon, Afroalpine vegetation of the Rwenzori Mountains
Schutyser S., 2007, 5 Continents Editions, In 1981, he was elected as a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was recognised as a ''doctor jubilaris'' at the Linnean Doctoral Promotion at Uppsala University 2007. He was updating the

Umbelliferae Apiaceae or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus ''Apium'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering plants ...

manuscript (prepared by Vernon Heywood, Stephen Jury and others) when he died in 2007.

Herbaria

He was a member of the

British Mycological Society The British Mycological Society is a learned society established in 1896 to promote the study of fungi. Formation The British Mycological Society (BMS) was formed by the combined efforts of two local societies: the Woolhope Naturalists' Field ...

. He was a contributor to the herbaria of the Natural History Museum (BM), the National Botanic Garden of Belgium (BR), National Museums of Kenya (East African Herbarium), National Herbarium (Ethiopia), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K), Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (P) and the Swedish Museum of Natural History Department of Phanerogamic Botany (S). He was considered to be an important collector for the botany section of the Museum of Evolution at

, Sweden having contributed to the phanerogamic part of the museum.

Personal life

Professor Hedberg and his wife Inga (also a botanist) had five children: Per, Bengt, Göran, Björn and Maria.

Taxonomic patronyms

In honor of K. O. ''Hedberg'', several taxonomic patronyms were given in plants. * ''

Hedbergia ''Hedbergia'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants, initially classified in Scrophulariaceae, and now within the broomrape family Orobanchaceae. It contains a unique species, ''Hedbergia abyssinica''. It is an afromontane genus, widespread i ...

'' * ''

Asystasia hedbergii The genus ''Asystasia'' belongs to the family Acanthaceae and comprises approximately 70 species found in the tropics, including the weedy species ''Asystasia gangetica''. Selected species * '' Asystasia africana'' (S. Moore) C.B. Clarke * '' A ...

'' * '' Bryum hedbergii'' * '' Calamagrostis hedbergii'' * ''

Colpodium hedbergii ''Colpodium hedbergii'' is a species of grass in the family Poaceae. It is found only in Kenya. Its natural habitats are rivers and Alpine wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (f ...

'' * '' Crassula hedbergii'' * '' Koenigia hedbergii'' * ''

Licania hedbergii ''Licania hedbergii'' is a species of plant in the family Chrysobalanaceae. It is endemic to Ecuador. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. This tree was found in 1990 by Walter Palacios near the road to Nueva L ...

'' * '' Microcyba hedbergi'' * '' Senecio hedbergii''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hedberg, Karl Olov 1923 births 2007 deaths Botanists active in Kew Gardens Botanists active in Africa Swedish botanists Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences