Pehr Osbeck thanks Linnaeus for his letter [Linnaeus to Osbeck, 16 July 1752{L1457}], and thinks that Linnaeus has praised him more than he deserves.
Osbeck tries to answer Linnaeus’s questions on potatoes and yam, but he has not seen either of them flower. The Cape pigeon is a species of Procellaria, as it seems. Osbeck will give Magnus Lagerström the birds and the specimens of plants and seeds, after which they will be sent to Linnaeus without delay.
The letter contains also a collection of 26 plant specimens, wrapped in Chinese paper. Osbeck comments on a few of them. Osbeck cannot send the whole of one of them, since the plant is too bulky. It will be sent with some person going to Uppsala during the summer. Then, Osbeck hopes to send also a tea set decorated with Linnaea, as well as a Chinese has been able to depict that flower.
Torén has found an insect in the Sargasso Sea, a very strange one; Osbeck has never seen it.
As a complement to the report on the Sargasso Sea, Osbeck reports that the small grains found there had now coagulated, while kept in spirit, so that they look like a white worm.
Osbeck sends his regards to Linnaeus’s family.