Finnish mycologist, plant pathologist and physiologist, Johan (Jysi) Ivar Lindroth, collected on several trips to Russian and Finnish Karelia. From a young age he followed the Finnish nationalist movement and in 1906 changed his name from the Swedish Lindroth to the Finnish name Liro. His political views also affected his collections from Russian Karelia because he firmly believed that the region should belong to Finland and so his specimens often state Finland in the locality data, when they were in fact collected in present day Russia.

Born near Helsinki he began to study there under K.O. Elfving in 1894, before continuing his education in Stockholm, Uppsala, Berlin, Munich and Leipzig. Lindroth gained a doctorate in 1902 and from then until 1908 worked as a natural history teacher at the Evo College of Forestry before it became the Agricultural and Economic Department at the University of Helsinki. Moving with it he became associate professor of plant biology and pathology in 1921, while at the same time took on the role of botany professor at the newly founded university in Åbo (Turku). After occupying both positions simultaneously for two years he was unable to continue and resigned from Åbo to concentrate on his work at Helsinki, where he remained until 1940.

Lindroth undertook collecting trips throughout Finland, exploring the moss flora of his country from Åland in the south to Lapland in the north, and in 1896 travelled widely in Karelia with I.O. Bergroth. Later, in 1898 and 1899, he explored this region again, following the Onega River and visiting Arkhangel'sk with the forestry ecologist and future Prime Minister of Finland Aimo Kaarlo Cajander. Although primarily a mycologist, Lindroth had a good understanding of vascular plants and collected both in the field. Particularly interested in rust fungi (Uredinomycota) his specimens have also provided phanerogamic botanists with locality data on their plant hosts. His Ureduneae fennicae was published in 1908 and represents one of the most comprehensive monographs of rust fungi ever produced. He was also interested in smut fungi (Ustilaginomycota) and published an extensive two-volume Die Ustilagineen Finnlands in the 1920s and 1930s, and later published his Enumeratio Ustilaginearum fennicarum (1938) which contains a checklist for Russian Fennoscandia. In 1915 Liro produced an account of Finnish and Russian vernacular plant names, another of the interests he pursued while travelling in Karelia.

Sources:
T. Ahti and M. Boychuk, 2006, The botanical journeys of A.K. Cajander and J.I. Lindroth to Karelia and Onega River in 1898 and 1899
R. Colander, 1965, The History of Botany in Finland.