Herbarium Receives Personal Gift of Swedish Specimens

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 3, July 2017.

Ulla Dixon with her husband William displaying a donation to the U.S. National Herbarium of 178 pressed specimens collected throughout Sweden during her childhood. (photo by Erika Gardner)

This spring the U.S. National Herbarium was offered a small but deeply meaningful collection of Swedish wildflowers by a private donor. On April 24, 2017, Ulla Smedberg Dixon and her husband William made a special trip to Washington D.C. They hand-delivered 178 vascular plant taxa from 54 families collected from 1948 to 1950. As a child, Dixon was inspired by her Aunt Edith to learn about botany. She grew a deep appreciation for the flora of her hometown in Sweden and began pressing specimens for her personal collection. Dixon collected these specimens during her teenage years from various locations throughout Sweden and kept them in a leather bound herbarium which was decorated by her sister with a hand painted illustration of Anemone nemorosa. In 1951 the Smedberg family emigrated to the United States. She recalled having to get special permission from her mother in order to transport her special specimens to their new home in New York State. Dixon decided to donate her personal herbarium to the Smithsonian Institution where their historical and botanical significance will long be valued.