Biological Works
His earliest major work was on the moss flora of the Kola Peninsula (Brotherus and T. Saelan. 1890. Musci Lapponiae Kolaensis. Acta Societas pro Flora et Flora Fennica 6: 1-100.) His other major European work was Die Laubmoose Fennoskandias (1923). He also studied, through collections sent to him by botanists abroad, the mosses of Turkmenistan, Africa, Australia, Brazil, and New Guinea, among others, and was known as an authority on extra-European mosses. His work on the Musci of Die Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien covered Archidiales, Andreaeales, and Bryales, and continued to the second edition. By invitation of Heinrich von Handel-Mazzetti, he authored the section on Chinese mosses in the Symbolae Sinicae. His collaborations and correspondence with other bryologists of the day were extensive. In particular, he was well acquainted with Max Fleischer, and used Fleischer's new 'natural' system of moss classification, outlined in the latter's Die Musci der Flora von Buitenzorg in Die Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien. Brotherus's unique achievement was his synthesis of moss taxonomy for the world-wide distribution, and his mastery of the identification and classification of the estimated 20 000 species of mosses then known to him.
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