Carl Peter Thunberg 1743-1828

Carl Peter Thunberg was born 1743 in Jönköping, Sweden. He studied medicine and natural philosophy at Uppsala University and in 1767 he defended a dissertation entitled 'De venis resorbentibus' under Linnaeus' presidency. In 1772, when he was in South Africa, he became doctor of medicine. He was appointed professor of medicine and natural philosophy in 1784 a position he held until his death in 1828.

Thunberg's travels

In 1770 Thunberg left Sweden to continue his studies in medicine and natural history in Paris. He visited Burman father and son in Amsterdam and after consulting Linnaeus they offered him to visit the Dutch colonies and Japan to collect plants for the gardens. In December 1771 Thunberg thus left Europe as an extra ship surgeon and in April 1772 Thunberg arrived at Cape Town, where he should stay for more than three years. He collected a large number of plants in the Cape Colony during several long and often dangerous travels (see Karsten in J. of South African Bot. 5: 1-27, 87-191, 1939).

In March 1775 Thunberg sailed for Java where he stayed two months visiting Batavia (Djakarta), Samarang and Buitenzorg.

In August 1775 Thunberg landed in Deschima, a small island in the bay of Nagasaki which was assigned to the Dutch. After five months he got permission to explore the environment of Nagasaki and in mid 1776 he made a journey to Edo (Yedo, now Tokyo), a slow travel where he was able to collect a good number of plants. Contacts with several native doctors who wanted to learn about European medicine also resulted in additional plant material from the inner part of the country.

Thunberg left Japan in November 1776 and visited Java a second time. In July 1777 Thunberg arrived in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) where he stayed in seven monthes and collected a great number of plants in the surroundings of Colombo and during travels to Galle, Madura and Negombo.

Thunberg left Ceylon in February 1778 and the ship stopped only two weeks in May at Cape and arrived at Amsterdam in October 1778. On his way home to Sweden, he made a short visit to London where he saw Kaempfer's Japanese collection from 1680-ties. He also met Forster who showed him the plants that he had collected during Cook's second voyage. Some of this material is present in Thunberg's collection in Uppsala. In March 1779, Thunberg arrived in Sweden after nine years on travel. At that time Linnaeus had died (1778) and had been succeded by his son.

Publications

As a result of the vast collecting Thunberg was able to publish a large number of papers and books. Most important are Flora Japonica (1784) and Flora Capensis (1807, 1811, 1813, 1818, 1820, 1823). Several dissertations under the presidency of Thunberg was also founded on the material. Linné fil., Montin and recent botanists have also described many new taxa on Thunberg's material. See Juel, Plantae Thunbergianae (1918).

Thunberg's herbarium

In 1785 Thunberg donated all his collected material to Uppsala University. The herbarium is kept separate (as UPS-THUNB) together with other important collections as Burser's Hortus Siccus in a 'strong-room'. The herbarium contains not only Thunberg's own collections from the travels, but also his collections after 1785 including garden plants. A large number of plants from other botanists and collectors from all over the world are also included. The material is now computerized and could be reached through our database. Thunberg arranged the herbarium after his emended version of Linnaeus' Sexual System.

At the beginning, the plants were mounted on thin 330 x 210 mm sheets, but most material is on larger (370 x 240 mm), slightly thicker sheets. A typical example of a sheet in the Thunberg Herbarium is Acer japonica. On most of the sheets, Thunberg has written the scientific name near the lower right corner. When there is more than one sheet of a species, it is usually indicated by alpha, beta, gamma etc. or numbers. On the backside, at the upper left corner, the locality, collector or the person who has brought the plant to Thunberg is indicated in many cases. When the material is cited the number stamped on the upper right corner should be used eg. UPS-THUNB 24067.

The whole herbarium is available on microfiche.

R.M. 2000-08-02