[1] Nylander was born in Oulu to magistrate Anders and his wife Margareta Magdalena Fahlander.
He studied natural sciences at the Imperial Alexander University majoring in botany and zoology and graduated in 1840 after some travels around Europe in 1839.
In 1842 he travelled around Fennoscandia collecting plants and published part of the Spicilegium Plantarum Fennicarum (1843) and received a Phil.
[2] Nylander was a member of the Societas pro Fauna et Flora Fennica from 1836 and was in charge of its collections which were destroyed in 1827 in the great fire of Turku.
His brother William Nylander (1822–1899) was a famous lichenologist and served as the first professor of botany at the University of Helsinki.