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LINNAEUS 
by Linne. Applying for a tutor for his son, “ Will 
you/' he wrote, “ provide me with one, who has not 
studied divinity, oriental languages, nor metaphysics, 
but has given his mind to other important sciences? 
I would gladly choose a botanist.” The death in 
1772 of the then Count and Field-Marshal Ehrensward 
severed the connection between these veterans. 
Another friend who has been mentioned before 
was Court Intendant Baron Carl Harleman. The 
friendship began when plans for the restoration of 
the Uppsala garden were prepared by Harleman, and 
continued when the castle, the cathedral, and similar 
works were taken in hand. It was by his initiative 
that Linne was commissioned, for economic reasons, 
to undertake his Skane journey. Linne wrote to 
Back in praise of his friend's endeavours for the 
economic improvement of the country, and it was to 
him that in 1749 Linne’s “ Materia medica ” was 
dedicated. Harleman’s death in 1753 deeply grieved 
the survivor. “ God help us, who now will be our 
Harleman? ” 
A comrade in the Academy of Science was 
Baron Carl Sten Bjelke, Assessor, afterwards Aulic 
Councillor in Abo Court of Appeal. He was devoted 
to botany, having an uncommonly accurate knowledge 
of grasses. In 1744, with Kalm, he travelled in 
Russia, and in consequence, Linne received from him 
a rich collection of dried plants from that country, 
more than two hundred in all, those from Siberia being 
nearly all new and undescribed. How grateful Linne 
was for this gift appears from his remarks dated 1745. 
Most East Indian plants are now in my hands; all 
of Ceylon, more than two thousand in number, I am 
examining without ceasing. There is a genus 
Bielkea , a rare grass, which shall thank the Baron for 
his love for botany, and shall make him known on the 
sun’s rising upon his return to Sweden.” Bjelke 
settled at Lofsta on his estate in the parish of Funbo. 
There he busied himself in the introduction of new 
