During the end of the 1940s Nordic plant physiologists faced difficulties in getting their work published in international journals. As a result, a swedish intiative to establish a new society gained wide support among the researchers in Scandinavia. A preliminary meeting was held in Stockholm in May, 1947, which resulted in a founding meeting held on October 27-28th, 1947, in Copenhagen with representatives from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
It was decided to establish an organization called Nordisk Förening för Fysiologisk Botanik, later to become Societas Physiologiae Plantarum Scandinavica. The aim of the society should be to arrange regular scientific conferences and to publish the journal Physiologia Plantarum, established in 1948. Professor Hans G. Burström from Lund was appointed editor-in-chief of the journal, a position that he administered for 22 years.
