Biography

Swedish botanist from Jäder in Södermanland. Erik Asplund studied at Nyköping and afterwards at the University of Uppsala where he gained a Master's degree (1913) and PhD (1920). During this time, he participated in two expeditions to Spitsbergen, Svalbard, in 1913 and 1915. His major specialisation, however, became the South American flora, and he made his first trip to the continent in 1920-1921. During this time he chiefly collected in Bolivia, also visiting Chile, Venezuela, Panama and Brazil on his travels. He returned to South America in 1939-1940, this time collecting in Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, and again in 1955-1956, collecting in Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. He also collected in the Canary Islands in 1933.

Meanwhile in his home country, Asplund was appointed Associate Professor of Botany at Uppsala (1921-1925) before joining the Department of Botany at the Swedish Museum of Natural History as Regnell Scholar and Assistant in 1925. He was promoted to Curator in 1933, remaining in this position until his retirement in 1953, and was made Professor in 1957. While South American plants were his passion, he was also an expert on vascular plants of the Nordic region, in 1937 publishing the second edition of Stockholmstraktens växter in collaboration with Erik Almquist. He also published many papers in Arkiv för Botanik. Two genera are named after him: Asplundia (Cyclanthaceae) and Asplundianthus (Asteraceae), as well as dozens of species. His original collections are deposited in the Regnellian Herbarium at Swedish Museum of Natural History.