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LINN/EUS 
dried plants and bulbs.” The Empress Catherina II., 
in 1773, sent several hundred sorts of seeds collected 
by Gmelin, Pallas and others in the Russian service. 
Linne, at an earlier date, had declared that he was 
body and soul in the garden, and his love for it never 
waned. He urged his friends to come to Uppsala at 
certain times, when it showed itself at its best. To the 
then current belief that the garden should be a nursery 
for medicinal plants, as it belonged to the medical 
faculty, Linne protested that it was a living library of 
plants for the public to learn their names, to follow 
their development, to observe their metamorphoses, 
and to become acquainted with their smell and taste, 
as a good means of noting their application to medical 
uses. Economic plants too were cultivated and 
observed, in order that native plants might take the 
place of imported products. He further endeavoured 
to acclimatize plants, such as a substitute for tea, which 
he hoped might be grown as readily as lilac; and also 
made repeated attempts to procure a living tea-plant. 
If he succeeded, he thought the Chinese would lose 
100 tunns of gold annually, each tunn valued at 
'£ 1,400. A report that tea-plants were in actual 
cultivation was investigated, when it was found that it 
was only Salix repens , “ as different from the tea bush 
as a peacock from a crow.” His delight was great 
when he learned that two living specimens had reached 
Gothenburg from China. They arrived safely at 
Uppsala, but proved to be a species of Camellia. 
At last the day came when Linne’s earnest desires 
were realized. Captain C. G. Ekeberg wrote that he 
had several tea-plants at Gothenburg. He had followed 
Linne’s instructions, that “ seeds should be sown in 
a pot, when starting home from China, and treated as 
if in a forcing house.” In his reply to Ekeberg, he 
burst out rapturously: “ But living tea trees! Is it 
possible? Is it the true tea tree? But I am certain 
it will not come unharmed to Uppsala; fate is against 
it. I am old, but were I sure it was the genuine plant, 
