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Pehr Osbeck (1723 – 23 December 1805) was a Swedish explorer and naturalist.
Naturalist in Canton
He was born in the parish of Hålanda in Västergötland and studied at Uppsala with Carolus Linnaeus. In 1750–1752 he travelled as chaplain on the ship Prins Carl to Asia 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, which was translated into German in 1762 and English in 1771.
He ended his career as the parish priest of Våxtorp and Hasslöv in Halland, where he died in 1805.
His large collections are preserved in Sweden and the UK. He is commemorated by the genus Osbeckia L. of plants in the family Melastomataceae. The standard author abbreviation Osbeck is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.[1]
Selected works
- Osbeck, Pehr (1771). A voyage to China and East Indies, Vol. I. London: Benjamin White. [digitized by University of Hong Kong Libraries, Digital Initiatives, "China Through Western Eyes." ]
- Osbeck, Pehr (1771). A voyage to China and East Indies, Vol. II. London: Benjamin White. [digitized by University of Hong Kong Libraries, Digital Initiatives, "China Through Western Eyes." ]