Career

Collecting localities

Collections

Literature

Biographical data

 

Grönda(h)l, Carl Fredric

 

(Source: Flora Malesiana ser. 1, 5: Cyclopaedia of collectors, Supplement I)

 

Born: 1760, Åbo, Finland. Died: 1816, Stockholm, Sweden.

 

career:

Had from his youth onwards a special liking for natural history. In 1781 a student at Åbo, where he also attended medical courses; in 1786 to Stockholm, surgical cand. in 1787; from 1789-90 during a war hospital doctor in Finland, subsequently accompanying two voyages to East India as a ship’s surgeon. In 1795 appointed court physician at Stockholm, in 1800 M.D. at Åbo, and probably from at least Nov. 1803 at Stockholm again.1

A correspondent of A.J. Retzius and C.P. Thunberg.1 He asked the latter to intercede for him with the Swedish East India Company. In 1797 he asked Thunberg whether it would be possible to get a doctor’s title for his collections, of which the first set was presented to the Uppsala Museum and ‘hopes Th. won’t take the question ill’.

The insect Tortrix gröndaliana was named after him.

 

Collecting localities:

Evidently accompanying two East India voyages of the Swedish East India Company between end 1790 and end 1795. From the collections at Lund it seems that he also visited S. America.

 

collections:

From his letter (dated Stockholm, April 1797)1 one would derive that his first set was presented to Uppsala [UPS], but I myself did not see many specimens in the Thunberg herbarium. Numerous specimens in Herb. Retzius (= Lund [LD]), at least from Cap Verd, Ind. Or., the Cape, Ile de France, China, and Amer. Merid. No sheets marked Java were seen by me, so it is still doubtful whether he collected in the Malaysian region.

 

literature:

(1) MS letters to Thunberg in Library University Uppsala, written between 1788 and 1807.

 

biographical data:

Sacklén, Sveriges Läkare Historia 1, 1822, p. 419-421.