246 LETTER TO GMELIN 



voyage," which I will despatch from here in the spring of 1743. 

 Just now I am sending a small portion of the seeds collected in 

 America that I was able to save from spoiling; the remainder 

 I will forward in the spring of 1743, together with the plants 

 and other noteworthy objects, of which Your Highness shall have 

 your share. I have christened a new genus of plants in America 

 with your most worthy name and called it Gmelina in order to 

 regain your eternal friendship" by means of a scientific god- 

 fa thership. If, however, by a hard and inevitable fate I am 

 consigned to be an anonymous one of your friends or a pseudo- 

 friend I should feel it all the more keenly as I see Linnaeus in 

 his "Critica botanica" quite rightly taking strong exception 

 to the matter.i^ When Fortune shall deliver me into your hands 

 you will learn from me the whole secret, my rashness, and my 

 innocence; and, although the mistake I committed was against 

 my will, yet, in keeping with my regard for Your Highness and 

 your merits, I will most gladly concede whatever reparation you 

 may claim. In the meantime the assurance of a pardon would 

 give me great peace of mind and promote my affairs. 



I should also like to report that Professor Fischer has not yet 



" i.e. the journal which forms the main part of the present volume. 



1* It seems that relations between Gmelin and Steller had been strained 

 for a time because Steller sent his reports directly to St. Petersburg 

 instead of to Gmelin, to whom he had been assigned as assistant (Otto 

 Gmelin, op. cit., p. 130, second footnote). (J) 



The genus named Gmelina by Steller is now called Lagotis Gartner and 

 the species he collected, Lagotis glauca var. gmelini (Cham, et Schlecht.). 

 It is described by him in one of the five manuscript documents in Latin 

 referred to above, p. 58, footnote 119, namely as the first entry in the "De- 

 scriptiones L. plantarum rariorum in insula Beringi 1742 observatarum 

 una cum catalogo plantarum omnium in dicta insula obviarum" (see 

 Bibliography below, p. 254). (S) 



Linne, however, as he states in a letter to Gmelin dated April 4, 1 744 

 (Otto Gmelin, op. cit., p. 137, and Plieninger edit., p. 19), in the second 

 edition of his "Genera plantarum," Leyden, 1742, had bestowed the 

 generic name Gmelina upon Gfnelina asiatica L., and Steller 's American 

 Gmelina therefore had to withdraw before Linne's Asiatic genus. (J) 



" The "Critica botanica" was published at Leyden in 1737. 



