As a side effect of my current work at the Botanical Museum of Natural history, University of Oslo, I come across rarities and even "time capsules". The oldest specimens I have examined in the herbarium is from the early 17th Century and when time marches on, from the 1830's onwards there are massive collections available for scrutiny. Today, I worked with a specimen collected around 1860, and came across an attached, but yet unopened, letter on the herbarium sheet. The text, written in a clear and concise hand, was from the Swedish Pastor J.O.Hagström, a widely recognised expert on the genus
Potamogeton, and outlined his comments on that very specimen. He claimed it matched an exceeding rare triple hybrid that at the time only was known from a single station world wide. As natural triple hybrids are so rare among plants, this taxon has recently attracted research interest using molecular genetics. The real existence of the triple hybrid has been verified by the modern methods, but no other locality has come up. That is, until the forgotten letter, unread and ignored for 107 years, came to light. I read his very precise remarks and confirmed the existence of the described features on the specimen seen in the background. Thus, now the taxon has increased its world wide distribution 100%
. I also got a first-hand impression of the working mindset of a scholar who unfortunately died shortly after this letter was written. I returned home today with a lot of food for thoughts.
