Morten Wormskjold

[1] Morten Wormskjold was born in Copenhagen to a recently nobilitated family of civil servants in the Danish state administration.

In 1807, he accompanied Hornemann and the Norwegian botanist Christen Smith on a trip to Norway to collect plant specimens to support descriptions and form the basis of illustrations intended for the grand plate work Flora Danica, at that time edited by Hornemann.

Wormskjold used that time to follow lectures in geology by Robert Jameson and Daniel Rutherford.

He also got acquainted with Ninian Imrie and Thomas Allan, who had bought a party of minerals shipped by Giesecke, but confiscated by the Royal Navy.

[2] In 1815, back in Copenhagen, he got the opportunity to join the Russian expedition on the circumnavigational expeditionary ship Rurik commanded by Otto von Kotzebue.

However, due to misfortune in 1842 – a devastating fire[4] – almost all specimens still in his possession, together with valuable journals and notes, were destroyed.