Pehr Forsskål

(1732 - 1763)

Botanist, zoologist, traveller and philosopher. Born in Helsinki, studied botany at Uppsala under Linnaeus. Doctorate in philosophy and studies of oriental languages at Göttingen. Naturalist on the Royal Danish expedition to Egypt and Yemen 1761-1763. His notes were published by his travel companion Carsten Niebuhr as "Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica" in 1775. Main collections (c. 1850 sheets) from this trip at the Botanical Museum; published by F.N. Hepper & I. Friis, The Plants of Pehr Forsskål's Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Botanical Museum, Copenhagen. 1994.

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Last updated 3 March 1997