The heaths were all white with ‘Linagrostis spica erecta’ [Hare’s-tail Cotton-grass] and ‘spicis dependentibus’ [Common Cotton-grass].
The bogs were white with ‘Ledum’ [Labrador tea]; ‘Chamaemorus’ [Cloudberry] was starting to disappear.
The forests were white with ‘Trientalis’ [Chickweed Wintergreen] and ‘Mesamora’ [Dwarf Cornel], which were now beginning to go over and be replaced by cranberry, blaeberry, ‘Melampyrum’ [Common Cow-wheat] and ‘Geranium’ [Wood Cranesbill].
The meadows were all yellow with ‘Ranunculus erectus’ [Meadow Buttercup].
Some of the arable fields were yellow with ‘Brassica campestris’ [Wild Turnip], and Wild Cabbage took over as the former died back.
The watercourses were white with ‘Menyanthes’ [Bogbean].
‘Linagrostis’ [Cotton-grass] and ‘Salix’ [willow] were now beginning to send forth their seeds.
The Prefecture of Luleå
Down by the shore to the right at GӒDDVIK ferry there rises a lively spring that they call Cold Spring. It flows vigorously and is full of ochre. The latter lies around here in considerable quantities, producing a silvery scum. It tastes rather like a sulphur spring but is quite mild. It bubbles up no more than 12 yards from the river, yet it does not freeze in the winter until it has reached the river. The hill there is not high, being no more than a fair-sized mound about 4 feet in perpendicular height above the level of the river. The opening faces north-east, or a little east of it, and people wash in it.
Wherever bridges have been built along the road, it was possible to see how very thin the topsoil was: gravel and heath sand for a hand’s breadth, common in the damp places and even more so in the dry, followed by clay often for as much as 4 feet. Between the sand and the clay there was a layer of gravel, and another at the bottom where the clay stopped. Water was flowing from the clay in particular and it was producing a deposit of slime. Could this be ochre?
22nd. I found ‘Viola aquatica, rotundifolia, flore prorsus niveo’ [Marsh Violet] close by the new town of Pitea.
Plenty of ‘Chamaecyparissus’ [clubmoss] grows here and they dye wool with it.1 They boil it together with birch leaves collected around midsummer and use it to dye coarse woollen cloth.
‘Ranunculus minimus parisiensis’ [Creeping Spearwort] was growing on the shore at Old Luleå.
New Luleå is a very small town and lies on a peninsula situated within a bay. The soil is rather infertile. The town stands on a small eminence of jumbled rocks filled in with sand and rubble so that it looks as if the sea has eaten away all the topsoil that used to be there – rather as if some predator has left only the bones behind, that is the stones, after throwing sand over them so that no one could see them.
I left New Luleå at 11 o’clock since there was nothing to be gained there and, as there was no horse to be had in the town, went by sea to Old Luleå 4 miles away.
There I found ‘Barba senum’ [Mat-grass], an unusual grass that is called Coffee Beard in Småland. In Piteå they call it ‘Pig’s Bristle’.