page_title: Edvard August Vainio
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Edvard August Vainio / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of the Finnish phytogeographer Johan Peter Norrlin (1842–1917) at age 23.
context_page_description: Edvard August Vainio was a Finnish lichenologist. His works on the cryptogam flora of Lapland, his three-volume monograph on the genus Cladonia, and in particular his study of the natural classification and morphology of lichens in Brazil made Vainio renowned internationally.
  Young Vainio's friendship with the ten-years-older university student Johan Petter Norrlin helped him develop an impressive knowledge of local cryptogam flora and allowed him ample opportunity to hone his collection and identification techniques at an early age. It was through this association that Vainio also met Norrlin's teacher, the prominent lichenologist William Nylander, who supported his early botanical efforts. Vainio's earliest publications dealt with phytogeography or elucidating and enumerating the local flora. Already in these early publications he demonstrated an attention to detail and thoroughness that would become characteristic of his later work.
context_section_description: Edvard Lang was born on 5 August 1853 in Pieksämäki at a time when Finland was under Russian rule. Brought up in a poor home,, Edvard was one of several children of parents Carl Johan Lang and Adolfina Polén, both of whom were bailiffs. Young Edvard's early interest in natural history was manifested in his early interest in flowers and his mineral collection; his favourite flower was the marsh willowherb (Epilobium palustre). His eldest brother, Joel Napoleon Lang, was also an avid naturalist; he would later go on to become a well-known legal scholar. In the early 1860s, Carl Johan was transferred to Hollola near Lake Vesijärvi in southern Finland, and the family settled into a farm near Laitila. It was here where Edvard met the phytogeographer Johan Petter Norrlin, who was the neighbour's son. At the time, Norlinn, who was 10 years his senior, was a university student. Norlinn would later marry Vainio's sister in 1873.
  Norlinn had become interested in cryptogams after hearing university lectures given by the well-known lichenologist William Nylander at the Imperial Alexander University (later the University of Helsinki), and he later became Nylander's student. He had developed an expertise in the local cryptogam flora, particularly the lichens, which are quite diverse in Finland. Edvard Lang accompanied and assisted him during field trips in the summers of 1868 and 1869, eagerly absorbing and accumulating knowledge. When Norlinn published Beiträge zur Flora des südöstlichen Tavastlands ("Writings on the flora of south-eastern Tavastia Province") in 1870, he credited public school pupil E. Lang for his numerous and valuable contributions to his work.
caption: Johan Norrlin (shown here at 23 years old) was Edvard Lang's neighbour, early mentor, and later became his brother-in-law.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image ExifOffset": "38", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "353", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "470"}