Olof Peter Swartz (September 21, 1760 – September 19, 1818) was a Swedish botanist and taxonomist. He is best known for his taxonomic work and studies into
pteridophytes. He attended the
University of Uppsala where he studied under
Carolus Linnaeus the Younger and received his doctorate in 1781. He first traveled in 1780, to
Lapland in the company of several other botanists. In 1783 he sailed for North America and the West Indies, primarily in the area of
Jamaica and
Hispaniola, to collect botanical specimens. His botanical collection, of an impressive 6000 specimens, is now held by the
Swedish Museum of Natural History, as part of the Regnellian herbarium. By 1786 he left for
London to prepare his collection. There he met
Joseph Banks, who was impressed with his knowledge of Botany. He was offered a position with the
British East India Company as a travelling physician, but turned it down, and returned to Sweden in 1787. Ten years later he proposed to the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (of which he became a member in 1789) the idea of a permanent travel grant, based on the methods he had seen employed by Banks within the British Empire. In 1791 he became
Professor Bergianus at the Academy of Sciences at Stockholm. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1805. Swartz was the first specialist of
orchid taxonomy, who published a critical review of orchid literature and classified the 25 genera that he recognized through his own work. He was also the first to realize that most orchids have one stamen, while
slipper orchids have two. The genus
Swartzia (
Caesalpiniaceae,
Fabaceae or Leguminosae) was named in his honor by
Schreber.