The history of science is full of examples in which a set of more or less random events shape a great discovery, a new theory or the creation of a new institution. The case of the botanist Eric Svenson, born in Sweden but adopted from the Canary Islands, was just the opposite.
Many years of preparation and effort, self-demanding and methodical work, and personal sacrifices, led him to achieve a prominent place in the panorama of Spanish and international botany.
On the one hand, he became, already from a very young age, a great expert in crass plants and cacti, at least a curious fact for a Scandinavian citizen. Secondly, he played a very prominent role helping the German Carl Faust in the first years of creation of the Marimurtra Botanical Garden in Blanes, a reference in this type of plants at that time. His expedition to Morocco provided Faust with a remarkable collection of North African flora and was ultimately instrumental in saving Marimurtra during the difficult years of the Civil War.
His most fruitful period took place, however, in the Canary Islands, first in Tenerife and finally in Gran Canaria. His merit was twofold; on the one hand, on a scientific level, he studied the native flora of the archipelago like no one else, a global treasure in terms of biodiversity. Even today, Svenson is the person who has discovered the most Canarian plant species new to science.
Institutionally, he was the soul of the creation and expansion of the Viera y Clavijo Botanical Garden, near Las Palmas, the second largest in Europe, dedicated to Macaronesian flora, with a unique collection of plants and reference in research.
Eric Ragnar Svenson was born in Skirö, a small town in southern Sweden, on October 10, 1910. His youth is difficult to trace, he immediately traveled, first through Sweden, then through Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, with the goal of learning botany, his great passion.
In Prague he met the best cactus specialist of the time, Alberto Vojt?ch Fri?, a unique personage who became his teacher. Fri? was a Czech botanist, ethnologist and writer who developed his career in South America where, apart from flora, he studied and defended indigenous cultures. In 1944 he died in a prison in Prague occupied by the Nazis, against whom he fought.
From Fri?, the young Swede learned the complicated techniques of studying cacti and gross plants, including their dry preparation in order to preserve them in herbariums or to be able to determine their species.
This learning attracted the attention of a German patron established in Catalonia, Carl Faust, who was setting up his own scientific institution in Blanes, what we know today as the Marimurtra Botanical Garden. His idea was to build a meeting place for biologists from all over Europe, where they could do their botanical studies in freedom, specializing, above all, in cacti and succulent plants. The benign climate of the Costa Brava allowed its cultivation, and it would save scientists expensive trips all over the world, at a time when it was difficult, expensive and risky.
Svenson arrived in Blanes in the spring of 1934. He immediately joined the team of young botanists and gardeners and began a series of jobs that must have excited him, such as an expedition to North African lands to harvest collection of plants and seeds intended for the rockeries at the entrance to the incipient garden.
His colleagues were first-class professionals, such as the Swiss Zenon Schreiber, who years later left for the United States where he put his experience in the construction of rockeries at the service of his clients, who ranged from members of the Rockefeller family to President Eisenhower, for whom Schreiber designed the rockery of the summer residence at Camp David, Maryland.
Faust’s team was powerful. When Schreiber left, Svenson took his place as head gardener. But that’s where the good news ends. While Faust was on holiday in Germany, the Civil War breaks out. Two events stand out from this conflict that highlight the qualities of the character.
The first is that just at the time of the outbreak, Svenson, frightened by the virulence of some events in Blanes, where the excesses and crimes of the Free Trade Union, linked to the employers’ association, were present in the collective memory, poured to revenge and violence this time at the hands of anarchist organizations.
The “Svenson solution” consisted of hanging a Swedish flag on the balcony of the nineteenth-century building of Faust’s house that gives entrance to the garden, as a sign of neutrality. He was successful and the garden was untouched. Later, with the approval of Faust himself from France, extensive areas were converted for horticultural cultivation, which served the local population.
The second fact consisted in the fact that the Swedish colony in Catalonia tasked Svenson with managing the financial resources they provided, to manage a kind of foster home for war orphans, the so-called Catalan Swedish Colony. The Colony settled in two estates in Teià.
Without leaving Marimurtra, Sevenson managed this initiative admirably. So much so that in 2004 the survivors and descendants of those children paid a tribute to Teià with the sponsorship of the town council.
After the war, a new stage began with the Benedictine community of Montserrat. Due to disagreements with Faust, he left Blanes and through the intercession of the Nubiola family, friends and collaborators of Faust, he contacted the monks who sought the help of an expert botanist. Father Adeodat Marcet, brother of the well-known Abbot, was making a herbarium of the mountain of Montserrat and its surroundings. Not only did they fit in well, but they became great friends and the Swede lived in the abbey until 1943.
Svenson was a cultured man, great music lover, and with a deep spirituality that allowed him to fit into monastic life. At this stage he converted to Catholicism and that is when he decided to Latinize his name to Sventenius, which is how he is known in the Canaries and in the botanical community. Latin was the lingua franca of botanists until the 60s of the last century.
In 1943 he received a job offer that he couldn’t refuse, to join the scientific team of the Jardín de Aclimatación de la Orotava, a magnificent garden created at the time of Charles III to plant specimens of trees and shrubs , especially of economic interest coming from America.
There he was fascinated by the Canary Islands and their special flora. He worked tirelessly in Tenerife and later on all the islands, and discovered many new plants for science.
One of them, from the rose family, belonged to a new genus, which he named Marcetiella in honor of his monk friend. Marcetiella moquiniana is a shrub of up to 4 meters called Palo de sangre. Like many other plants, it is a Canarian endemic, which only lives on some of the islands.
This abundance of such special species led him to propose the creation of a specialized botanical garden. In Tenerife it was not heard, but it was in Gran Canaria. In 1952 the president of the Cabildo, Matías Vega, a man with a vision who promoted many important initiatives for that island, laid the foundations of what would end up being the Jardín Canario, which would bear the name of an enlightened Canarian priest , great botanist and writer, who lived in the 18th century: José de Viera y Clavijo.
The Jardín Canario was the great work of Sventenius. He worked there from 1952 until his death, personally involved in its design, doing a very meticulous job. Construction began in 1952, opening to the public in 1959. Unfortunately, Matías Vega’s successor complicated things and Sventenius had to combine the creation of the garden in Gran Canaria with his work in Tenerife. A fact that lasted until 1971, when he was finally offered a stable contract as director of the garden.
Two years later, on the afternoon of St. John’s Eve in 1973, he said goodbye to his great friend Charlotte (Lotti) Schrader, at the bus stop in front of the garden gate. They had decided to get married and wanted to announce the news the next day. When crossing the road to return to the garden, a hit-and-run ended his life. He was 63 years old and still had many projects for his garden, and to advance the knowledge and conservation of the Canarian flora.
The decision was made to place his grave in a quiet corner of the garden, under some volcanic cliffs and not far from the laurel forest. He is honored every year. The garden has not stopped growing and improving and is a must-see for specialists or simply tourists visiting the island of Gran Canaria.
Cristófol Jordan Sanuy
President of the Carl Faust Foundation
Marimurtra Botanical Garden. Blanes
