The history of science is full of examples in which a set of more or less random events shapes a great discovery, a new theory or the creation of a new institution. The case of botanist Eric Svenson, born Swedish but canary by adoption, 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 Spanish and international botanical scene.
On the one hand, he became, from a very young age, a great expert on succulent plants and cacti, a curious fact for a Scandinavian citizen. Secondly, he played a very prominent role helping the German Carl Faust in the early years of creating the Marimurtra Botanical Garden in Blanes, a benchmark for this type of plant at that time.
His Moroccan expedition 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.
However, his most fruitful period took place in the Canary Islands, first in Tenerife and finally in Gran Canaria. The merit of him was double; On the one hand, on the scientific level, he studied the native flora of the archipelago like no other, a world treasure in terms of biodiversity. Even today, Svenson is the person who has discovered the most new species of canary plants for science.
Institutionally, it 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 the Macaronesian flora, with a unique collection of plants and a benchmark in research.
Eric Ragnar Svenson was born in Skirö, a small town in the south of 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 aim of learning Botany, his great passion.
In Prague he met Alberto Vojtěch Frič, the best cactus specialist of the time, a unique character who became his teacher. Frič 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 Frič the young Swede learned the complicated techniques of studying cacti and succulent plants, including their dry preparation to preserve them in herbariums or to determine their species.
This apprenticeship attracted the attention of a German patron living 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 carry out their botanical studies in freedom, specializing, above all, in cacti and succulents. The mild climate of the Costa Brava allowed its cultivation, and it would save scientists costly trips around 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 Africa to collect selected plants and seeds for to the rockeries at the entrance to the incipient garden.
His colleagues were top-level professionals, such as the Swiss Zenon Schreiber, who years later went to 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 rockeries of the summer residence at Camp David, Maryland.
Faust's team was powerful. When Schreiber left, Svenson took his place as head gardener. But the good news ends here. While Faust was on vacation in Germany, the Civil War breaks out. Two facts stand out from this conflict that highlight the qualities of the character.
The first thing is that just at the moment of exploding, Svenson, frightened by the virulence of some events in Blanes, where the excesses and crimes of the Free Trade Union, linked to the employers, were present in the collective memory, led to revenge and violence charge this time of the anarchist organizations.
The “Svenson solution” consisted of hanging a Swedish flag on the balcony of the noucentista building of Fausto's house that leads to the garden, as a sign of neutrality. He was successful and the garden was left untouched. Subsequently, with the approval of Fausto himself from France, extensive areas were reconverted for horticultural cultivation, which served the local population.
The second event consisted in the fact that the Swedish colony in Catalonia commissioned Svenson to manage a kind of foster home for children orphaned by war, the so-called Colonia Sueca Catalana, managing the economic resources they contributed. The Colony settled on two farms in Teià.
Without leaving Marimurtra, Sevenson managed this initiative admirably. So much so that in 2004 the survivors and descendants of those children paid homage to Teià with the sponsorship of the town council.
After the war, he began a new stage 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 Montserrat mountain and its surroundings. They not only hit it off but became great friends and the Swede lived in the abbey until 1943.
Svenson was a cultured man, a great music lover, and whose deep spirituality allowed him to fit into monastic life. At this stage he converted to Catholicism and it is then that he decides to Latinize his name to Sventenius, which is how he is known in the Canary Islands and in the botanical community. Latin was the lingua franca of botanists until the 1960s.
In 1943 he received a job offer that he could not refuse, joining the scientific team of the Orotava Acclimatization Garden, a magnificent garden created in the time of Carlos III to plant specimens of trees and shrubs, especially of economic interest from America. There he was fascinated by the Canary Islands and their special flora.
He worked tirelessly on Tenerife and later on all the islands, discovering many new plants for science. One of them, from the rose family, belonged to a new genus, which he named in honor of his monk friend as Marcetiella. The Marcetiella moquiniana is a shrub up to 4 meters called Palo de sangre. Like many other plants, it is endemic to the Canary Islands, 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 on that island, laid the foundations for 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 Canary Garden was the great work of Sventenius. He worked there from 1952 until his death, being 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 creating the garden in Gran Canaria with his work in Tenerife. This lasted until 1971, when he was finally offered a stable contract as director of the garden.
Two years later, on the afternoon of Saint John's Eve in 1973, she said goodbye to her great friend Charlotte (Lotti) Schrader, at the bus stop in front of the garden gate. They had decided to get married and wanted to break the news the next day. When crossing the road to return to the garden, an accident ended her life. She was 63 years old and still had many projects for her garden and to advance knowledge and conservation of the Canarian flora.
The decision was made to locate his grave in a quiet corner of the garden, under some volcanic cliffs and not far from the laurel forest. Every year he is honored. The garden has not stopped growing and improving and is an obligatory reference for specialists or simply tourists visiting the island of Gran Canaria.
Cristófol Jordan Sanuy
President of the Carl Faust Foundation.
Marimurtra Botanical Garden. Blanes
