LINNÉSTIGARNA I UPPSALA

During the 1740s, Carl Linnaeus introduced highly popular excursions into his teaching, which he entitled Herbationes Upsalienses. Herbatio Gottsundensis is started at Fjärdingstull, which led over Lasseby hills, through Norby Helvete and on to Lurbo.

On a level with Eriksberg church, came ”the bare Lasseby hills”. This is where ”Lasseby” itself was supposed to have been. The town was known since the Middle Ages and kept its name right into the 16th century, after which there may have been a change of name. Lasseby hills were pasturelands with shifting areas of open dry fields and more damp wooded tracts in between. The students’ records mention such species as bearberry, crowberry, twayblade and chickweed wintergreen.

From Lasseby, they proceeded towards Norby and Hågadalen. On the way there, they would pass ”Norbykärr”, or Norby Helvete [Norby Hell] as it was also known. The list of species shows this must have been a great marsh in the middle of the 18th century, with butterwort, wild rosemary, marsh tea, sundew and even cloudberry. By the 19th century, the marsh had been drained and reclaimed and only in 2003 was it possible to substantiate the location of Norbykärr as the Ekeby municipal housing area.

In Hågadalen’s low-lying tracts, the Norby and Gottsunda meadows broadened out and here, the task was to learn the merits of the various plants as food for animals. The cultivation of grazing on natural meadow was an innovation at that time. Perhaps the company gathered right down by the bend of the stream during the examination. After that, they went up towards Norby grove. Here, they follow the road towards Gottsunda, which meandered between hills and headlands. In the main, herbs with medical properties were sought in this grove.

Diagonally across the long valley, one could now glimpse settlement and well-tended pastureland. There was Fäbodarna, and outlying farm are under the Dean of Uppsala. The foundations of dwellings and cattle sheds are still visible here. Today, the hillsides are richly covered in broadleaf trees and hazel, but were more open in Linnaeus’s time.

The company continued rambling down under the wooded mountain slope by ”Prediksstolen”. They also climbed to the crest of the hill and found the typical plants which belonged to this changing environments, including toothwort. Long before Linnaeus, during the Bronze Age 2,500 years before, these cliffs had served as protection to the farmers of Hågadalen. The ruins of the fortress are still clearly visible upon the crest.

The Gottsunda trail continued through richly foliaged meadows known as ”Flora’s Eden” and usually ended at Vårdsätra estate. Sometimes, they went on to Flottsund. In the estate park on a peninsular out towards Ekoln, was a densely planted grove which they visited. Later, Linnaeus’s great-grandson, Carl Ridderbielke, would settle here after selling Hammarby to the Swedish state in 1879.