Eilif Dahl (7 December 191617 March 1993) was a Norwegian botanist and politician for the Labour Party.
He was born in
Kristiania
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
. His interest in
lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.Bernt Lynge. Thanks to Lynge, Dahl was able to take part in the 1936 Heimland botanical expedition to eastern
Svalbard
Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...
and
Kong Karls Land
Kong Karls Land or King Charles Land is an island group in the Svalbard archipelago, in the Arctic Ocean. The island group covers an area of and is made up of the islands of Kongsøya, Svenskøya, Abel Island, Helgoland Island, and Tirpitzøya.
...
, and then a Danish-Norwegian expedition to
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...
the next year. His collections from these excursions were used as part of his cand. real. thesis that he presented to the
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
in 1942. According to
Hildur Krog
Hildur Krog (22 March 1922 – 25 August 2014) was a Norwegian botanist.
She was born in Modum. She took the dr.philos. degree in 1968 with a thesis on Alaskan lichens, was hired as a curator at the Botanical Museum of Oslo in 1971 and served as ...
, his most important lichenological contribution was his 1950 work ''Studies in the Macrolichen Flora of SW Greenland'', which was a revised version of his thesis.
Dahl was appointed professor of
botany
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
at the
Norwegian College of Agriculture
The Norwegian University of Life Sciences ( no, Norges miljø- og biovitenskapelige universitet, NMBU) is a public university located in Ås, Norway. It is located at Ås in Viken, near Oslo, and at Adamstuen in Oslo and has around 5,200 stude ...
from 1965. His research interests centered on Arctic plants and lichen, plant geography and ecology. He was also a politician for the Labour Party, where he was a board member from 1965 to 1977. During the
German occupation of Norway
The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany during the Second World War began on 9 April 1940 after Operation Weserübung. Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940, and Nazi Germany controlled Norway until the ...
he took part in resistance work, and was a member of the clandestine intelligence organization XU. After fleeing to neutral Sweden and later to the United Kingdom, he served with the
Norwegian High Command The Norwegian High Command ( no, Forsvarets Overkommando, FO) was Norway's top military leadership from 1970 to 2003. It was established in Northern Norway in 1940 by General Otto Ruge. It was then re-established by the Norwegian Government-in-exile ...
in London.
The lichen genus '' Eilifdahlia'', and its
type species
In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...