Carl Peter Thunberg
Daniel subsequently corresponded with Thunberg and also sent him animal skins, which he had bought with money the Swede supplied.
Carl Peter Thunberg, also known as Karl Peter von Thunberg, Carl Pehr Thunberg, or Carl Per Thunberg (11 November 1743 – 8 August 1828), was a Swedish naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. He has been called "the father of South African botany" and the "Japanese Linnaeus".
Linnaeus, 1758
Early life
Thunberg was born in Jönköping, and became a pupil of Carl Linnaeus at Uppsala University. There he studied natural philosophy and medicine, and took his degree in 1767. In 1770, he left Sweden for Paris, to continue his studies in medicine and natural history.
In 1771, during a stay in Amsterdam and Leiden, he studied their botanical gardens and musea. He was commissioned by Johannes Burman and his son Nicolaas to visit the Dutch colonies and Japan to collect specimens for Dutch botanical gardens. He left in December 1771, as the ship's surgeon in the Dutch East India Company. After his arrival at Cape Town, Cape Colony, he stayed there for three years in order to learn the Dutch language and to be able to pass himself off as a Dutchman, as Japan at that time was only open to Protestant Dutch merchants.