Pehr Osbeck

Pehr Osbeck

Osbeckia chinensis,drawn by Osbeck

Pehr Osbeck(1723 – 23 December 1805) was aSwedishexplorer,naturalistand anapostle of Carl Linnaeus.He was born in the parish ofHålandaonVästergötlandand studied atUppsalawithCarolus Linnaeus.

Naturalist in Canton

In 1750–1752 he travelled as chaplain on the shipPrins CarltoAsiawhere he spent four months studying the flora, fauna, and people of theCantonregion ofChina.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 Englishin 1771. In 1758, he was elected a member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Later career

He ended his career as the parish priest ofVåxtorpandHasslövinHalland,where he died in 1805.

Collections

His large collections are preserved in Sweden and the UK. He is commemorated by the genusOsbeckiaL.of plants in the familyMelastomataceae.

Selected works

• Osbeck, Pehr(1757).Dagbok öfwer en Ostindisk resa åren 1750, 1751, 1752: Med anmårkningar uti naturkunnigheten, fråmmande folkslags språk(in Swedish). Vol. 1757. Stockholm: Ludv. Grefing.
• Osbeck, Pehr (1771).A voyage to China and East Indies,Vol. I.Archived2012-02-16 at theWayback MachineLondon: Benjamin White. [digitized byUniversity of Hong KongLibraries,Digital Initiatives,"China Through Western Eyes."]
• Osbeck, Pehr (1771).A voyage to China and East Indies,Vol. II.Archived2016-03-25 at theWayback MachineLondon: Benjamin White. [digitized byUniversity of Hong KongLibraries,Digital Initiatives,"China Through Western Eyes."]