Pehr Osbeck (1723 – 23 December 1805) was a
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
explorer,
naturalist and an
apostle of Carl Linnaeus. He was born in the parish of
Hålanda on
Västergötland
Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden.
Väs ...
and studied at
Uppsala
Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019.
Located north of the c ...
with
Carolus Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, th ...
.
Naturalist in Canton
In 1750–1752 he travelled as chaplain on the ship ''Prins Carl'' to
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
where he spent four months studying the flora, fauna, and people of the
Canton region of
China. He returned home just in time to contribute more than 600 species of plant to Linnaeus' ''Species Plantarum'', published in 1753.
In 1757 he published the journal of his voyage to China, ''Dagbok öfwer en ostindisk Resa åren 1750, 1751, 1752'', which was translated into German in 1762 and English
Google books
/ref> in 1771. In 1758, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Later career
He ended his career as the parish priest of Våxtorp and Hasslöv in Halland
Halland () is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap''), on the western coast of Götaland, southern Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Småland, Scania and the sea of Kattegat. Until 1645 and the Second Treaty of Brömseb ...
, where he died in 1805.
Collections
His large collections are preserved in Sweden and the UK. He is commemorated by the genus '' Osbeckia'' L. of plants in the family Melastomataceae
Melastomataceae is a family of dicotyledonous flowering plants found mostly in the tropics (two-thirds of the genera are from the New World tropics) comprising c. 175 genera and c. 5115 known species. Melastomes are annual or perennial herbs, s ...
.
Selected works
*
* Osbeck, Pehr (1771)
''A voyage to China and East Indies,'' Vol. I.
London: Benjamin White. igitized_by_University_of_Hong_Kong_University_of_Hong_Kong#Libraries_and_museums.html" "title="University_of_Hong_Kong.html" ;"title="igitized by University of Hong Kong">igitized by University of Hong Kong University of Hong Kong#Libraries and museums">Libraries
A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...