Lars Grondall was taken under the wings of his våstgöta compatriot, botanist Adam Azelius, in his first year as a student in Uppsalla. At the invitation of Afzelius Lars joined the Linnaeus institute. Its purpose was to preserve the memory of Linnaeus and to seek to breathe new life into his science.
Lars Grondall completed his exam studies with full energy and managed in addition to play the flute in the academy orchestra. Also he became “corps master” in the most popular student athletic event of the time; a sort of baseball which is played with a duck’s head in stead of a ball. Next to these physical and musical talents, he was a zealous reader of novels. When the Uppsala Reading Society was founded he was voted secretary for the period of 4 years.
During summer vacations he undertook botanical excursions into Västergötland with like-minded people. The meticulous journals he kept during these trips and the botanical notations he makes in them indicate a remarkable knowledge of the subject.
Somewhere in the midst of all his demanding activities he lost control over the organization of his timetables and collapsed under it’s pressure. One night he was taken to hospital with hypothermia after he was found lying in the snow reciting parts of Thoreau’s “Walden”. Things went from bad to worse after that. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic and to this day is in and out of mental institututions.