Mikael Heggelund Foslie (21 October 1855 – 9 November 1909) was a Norwegian botanist and

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

ologist. Foslie was curator of the Royal Norwegian Scientific Society Museum (now NTNU University Museum) in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

Biography

He was born at Borge in the

Lofoten Islands Lofoten () is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Lofoten has distinctive scenery with dramatic mountains and peaks, open sea and sheltered bays, beaches and untouched lands. There are two towns, Svolvæ ...

Nordland Nordland (; smj, Nordlánnda, sma, Nordlaante, sme, Nordlánda, en, Northland) is a county in Norway in the Northern Norway region, the least populous of all 11 counties, bordering Troms og Finnmark in the north, Trøndelag in the south, N ...

, Norway. During his childhood, he developed an interest in natural history and in collecting plants and animals. Foslie worked in the Norwegian telegraph service from 1874 until 1885, first in the Lofoten Islands, then in Oslo. He was 29 in 1885 when he began his first full-time scientific position as a curator at the Tromsø University Museum in

Tromsø Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Tromsø (city), city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies ...

. With a travel grant from the university, he studied in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. He later visited biological stations in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Foslie moved to the

Museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

operated by the

Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters ( da, Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab, DKNVS) is a Norwegian learned society based in Trondheim. It was founded in 1760 and is Norway's oldest scientific and scholarly institution. The ...

in 1892, where he remained until his death in 1909. Foslie contributed an algal collection named ''Algae Norvegicae'' to the

Ulster Museum The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres (90,000 sq. ft.) of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasure ...

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. This collection was donated to the Ulster Museum by The

Queen's University of Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

in 1968. The specimens have been catalogued into the main collection in the Ulster Museum catalogued: F10319 - F10336. It is assumed that this refers to Mikael Heggelund Foslie. The specimens bear dates from the 1880s to 1890s. Mikael Foslie was a member of the Science Society in Kristiania (now the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Univer ...

) from 1891 and of the

from 1892.

Publications

*Foslie, M., 1884. Description of new species, edited in Wittrock & Nordstedt, Algae exsiccatae, fasc. 13-14 - ''Bot. Notiser'' 124 - 125. *Foslie, M., 1899. A visit to Roundstone in April. ''Ir. Nat. J.'' 8: 175 - 180.

References

Other sources

*Kertland, M.P.H. 1967. Some early algal collections in the Queen's University Herbarium. ''Ir. Nat. J.'' 15: 346 - 349. *Thor, E., Johansen, S. and Nielsen, L.S. 2005. The collection of botanical letters to Mikael H. Foslie in the Gunnerus Library: a catalogue. ''Gunneria'' 78:7 - 22. *Woelkerling, W.J. 1993. Type collections of Corallinales (Rhodophyta) in the Foslie Herbarium (TRH). ''Gunneria'' 67: 1289. *Woelkerling, W.J., Gustavsen, G., Myklebost, H.E., Prestø, T., Såstad, S.M. 2005. The coralline red algal herbarium of Mikael Foslie: revised catalogue with analyses. ''Gunneria'' 77: 1-625.

External links

Biodiversity Heritage Library
1855 births 1905 deaths People from Vestvågøy Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Norwegian phycologists Norwegian curators 19th-century Norwegian botanists 20th-century Norwegian botanists {{norway-botanist-stub