Historical overview - Luxembourg

In Luxembourg, three lichenologists honoured the beginning of the XIXth century: L. Marchand, F.-A. Tinant and J.-B. Reinhard. In 1829-30, L. Marchand (1807-43) published a Flora of the cryptogams found in Luxembourg, comprising about 200 lichen species. His herbarium, apparently rather rich, unfortunately disappeared during a fire at the University of Liège in the middle of the XIXth century, and there is now no specimen left.

On the other hand, F.-A. Tinant (1803-53) and Dr J.-B. Reinhard (1810-89) never published on lichens, except for a short paper by Tinant (1826) on the Grengewald forest near Luxembourg city in which he mentions three lichen species. Their herbaria are quite rich and now housed in LUX. Unfortunately, the collections bear no indications on their localities of origin. However, one can be quite confident that the Tinant collections originate from Luxembourg, especially from the 'Gutland', while those of Reinhard come from the Echternach area (either from Luxembourg or from nearby Germany). Another non-professional lichenologist, school-teacher M. G. Z. Werner from Mersch (1796-1862), gathered lichens around 1830-1835, and about 130 collections of his have recently been discovered in LUX.

Also of interest is an excursion by V. Bronn (1796-1834) and R. J. Courtois (1806-35) in the Meuse valley, in the Ardenne and in Luxembourg in July 1826. Their report (Bronn & Courtois 1827) mentions many lichen species.

In Luxembourg, botanist J.-P.-J. Koltz (1827-1907) hardly knew lichen taxonomy but nevertheless wanted to publish a complete 'Prodrome' of the flora of his country. He can claim credit for having gathered all available lichen collections and having submitted them to foreign colleagues for identification. Unfortunately, the results were published in a very uncritical way. The work was first published in 1885 for the macrolichens only, and eventually in 1897 for all lichens. The work of mycologist J. Feltgen from Mersch (1833-1904) should also be pointed out, as he collected and published more than 150 lichen species, mostly gathered near Mersch (Feltgen 1902, a work published by his son E. Feltgen).