Swedish naturalist and traveller who collected plants in the Middle East. A student of Carl Linnaeus at Uppsala (from 1741-1749), Frederik Hasselquist is known as one of Linnaeus' apostles. He was born at Törnevalla, East Gothland, and was also a student of the physician Lars Roberg at Uppsala, but turned his sights on natural history after his graduation.
His teacher Linnaeus bemoaned the lack of scientific explorations undertaken in Palestine, and Hasselquist made it his mission to visit this area. He reached Smyrna (modern Izmir) in late 1749 and from there travelled extensively in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, where he made significant natural history collections. He was ill prepared for the journey, however, and ran out of money in 1750 while in Egypt. Financial support from friends in Sweden (including Linnaeus) enabled him to continue on through Palestine, Syria, Cyprus, Rhodes and Chios, but by the time he reached Turkey he was very unwell. On the return journey, he died near Izmir in February 1752.
Hasselquist died with considerable debts to his name, and his assets, including his collections, were seized. Linnaeus managed to secure their return to Sweden, having them purchased by Queen Lovisa Ulrika. The queen gave Linnaeus duplicates of the specimens, which formed the basis of his Flora Palaestina (1756). Hasselquist had obviously sent some specimens beforehand to his former teacher, though, because he is mentioned in protologues for a number of Linnean plant names dating from 1753.
Linnaeus went on to publish the work Voyages and Travels in the Levant, in the Years 1749, 50, 51, 52 (Iter Palaestinum) based on Hasselquist's travel journal. The original version appeared in 1757 with translations into French and German in 1762 and in English in 1766. Hasselquist's main collection of 816 specimens remained at the royal palace of Drottningholm until 1803, when it was transferred to Uppsala. There are 150 more Hasselquist specimens in the herbarium of the Linnean Society of London (LINN). The plant genus Hasselquistia L. commemorates him.
Sources:
H. Chisholm, ed., 1911, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edn
C. Jarvis, 2007, Order out of Chaos: 77-78, 209-211
F. Stafleu, 1971, Linnaeus and the Linneans: 144, 149.
