This will be Carl Peter Thunberg’s last letter to Linnaeus this year. He presents a table of contents:
1. Seeds of Rothmannia capensis.
2. Fruits of Scoparia arborea.
3. Hair of a Hottentot. Presumably the first time hair is sent from this nation [Africa]. It is like Lichen filamentosus, it might deceive someone like Dillenius [Thunberg presumably refers to Johann Jacob Dillenius] if it was found on an old fence or soemthing like that. Thunberg acquired it in exchange for tobacco.
4. A sample of Jaia minuta, very like Helonias minuta.
5. The most beautiful Erica in the world. It grows in the mountain called Bockefeltet [Thunberg means the Kouebokkeveld or Cold Buck Field].
6. Names and additional information [put forward by Thunberg in his last letter to Linnaeus, 1 May 1774{L5004}] for the following plants:
1. Thesium colpoon or Colpoon Bergii; Thunberg sent a sample of this to Linnaeus last year [see Thunberg to Linnaeus, 28 June 1773{L851}], and would like to know whether it is a new genus or not;
2. Cynoglossum capense,
3. Helonias viridis,
4. Hermas depauperata,
5. A species of pinus for which Thunberg suggests the name Rhetzia or Pamelaea,
6. Heliophila,
7. Phyma dehiscens,
8. Didyma.
The strange species of gramina defy classification; they will probably be reduced under Restio. Linnaeus’s Restio and Professor Bergius’s Tamnochorthus seem to be identical. Like Elegia, it presents endless varieties.
In a letter to Lars Montin, Thunberg has sent a description of Cliffortia for the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters [Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab] and asked him to forward it to Linnaeus for necessary corrections.
Apart from the two parcels already dispatched [see Thunberg to Linnaeus, 4 April 1774{L4988}, and 1 May 1774{L5004}], no more deliveries home will be possible this year. Hopefully, Carl Gustaf Ekeberg will call at the Cape next year on his homeward voyage from China. Thunberg’s collection of insects is not impressive. The insects here are “incredibly few” due to the scarcity of plants, but Thunberg will send home what he has got.
P. S. Thunberg hopes to go to the interior of Africa again. At the moment he has examined and partly described 1300 species 600 of which are new. Another 500 remain to be examined, thus, 1800 in all. In this number there are also European plants that have emigrated and settled down here. Most of them have been collected by Thunberg himself but some of them have been given to him. Among these plants there are succulents of which he has sent specimens to Amsterdam, Leiden, and Leuwarden.