84 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



A Letter from Caul von Linnk to Pietro Arduino. 

 Contributed with an Introduction by Dr. G . B. De Toni, 

 Hon.F.E.M.S. 



(Commuuicated by Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S., Sec.L.S.) 



I HAVE the honour of taking part in the celebration by the Linnean 

 Society of London of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the 

 great systematist Carl von Linne, by contributing a letter * which 

 the Swedish naturalist despatched on the 3rd November 1764 from 

 Upsala to the Italian botanist, Pietro Arduino, at Padua f. 



This letter, which Mr. S. Morpurgo, director of the National 

 Library in Florence, has been so kind as to have transcribed from 

 the original preserved in the " Collezione Autografi, fondo Gronnelli, 

 Cart. 21, no. 113," furnishes several particulars of considerable 

 interest as to the relations existing between the two botanists 

 with regard to certain plants which Arduino had sent by special 

 request to Linne. 



In this letter the Swedish botanist gives expression to his great 

 regret at the loss of Porskal, the explorer of Arabia, one of his 

 pupils, who, previous to his death in 1763 +, had communicated 



* With regard to the correspondence of Linn^ with the naturalists of his 

 time, reference may be made to : — Gr. A. Pritzel, 'Thesaurus hteraturise botanicse,' 

 Lipsise (Brockhaus), 1872, 4<', p. 188 ; ' Linnseana in Nederland aauwezig,' 

 Amsterdam (Scheltema & Holkema), 1878, 8", pp. 42-45; to which may be 

 added, ' Lettere inedite di Carlo Linneo a Giovanni Antonio Scopoli ' (published 

 under the editorship of Messrs. Gr. de Cobelli and 0. Delaiti), Eovereto 

 (V. Sottochiesa), 1889, 8" ; and A. Alberg, ' The Floral King ; a Life of Linnaus,' 

 London (Allen & Co.), 1888, 80. 



t Pietro Arduino, born at Caprino (Verona), 18th July 1728, Professor of 

 Agriculture at the University, and Director of the Botanic Garden at Padua, 

 where he died, loth April 1805. For biographical notices, see P. A. Saccardo, 

 ' La botanica in Italia,' Venezia (M. Ferrari), 4"; Parte 1. 1895, p. 17 ; Parte II. 

 1901, p. 12. 



\ Pehr Forskal, born at Calmar (Smaland) in 1736, died at Jerim (Arabia), 

 nth July 1763, and not 1768, as indicated by G. A. Pritzel, Thes. hot. p. 110, 

 and following him by Saccardo, op. cit. p. 74. Evidently this is due to a 

 blunder in copying, for an old work gives 1763 as the true year of the death of 

 the botanical traveller ForskSl ; see 0. Sprengel, ' Historia rei herbarisB,'Tomu3 ii. 

 p. 420, Amstelodami, 1808. 



