In Memoriam Dr. S.J. van Ooststroom

On 28 September 1982 Dr. S.J. van Ooststroom died at the age of 76. He retired in 1971 from his office as senior botanist at the Rijksherbarium, the institute where he worked for 37 years. Simon van Ooststroom’s main botanical interest was the vascular flora of the Netherlands, including the adventitious and more or less naturalized members. The most authoritative flora of our country, known as Heukels—Van Ooststroom, was revised and edited by him for many years. Also in Flora Neerlandica he treated several families, many of them in collaboration with Th.J. Reichgelt. Numerous smaller papers bear witness of his knowledge of the Dutch flora, especially also the adventitious species. This makes it understandable that Dutch botanists, layman or professional, usually came to Simon with their identification problems.