Osbeck's voyage to China in the Swedish ship "Gothic Lion," which sailed in 1750, says: "After a stay of four months and ten days in China, our ship and the other Swedish ship began their voyage home. Every one leaped for joy, and my Tea shrub, which stood in a pot, fell upon the deck during the firing of the cannons, and was thrown overboard without my knowledge, after I had nursed it and taken care of it a long while on board the ship. Thus I saw my hopes blasted of bringing a growing Tea plant to my countrymen; a pleasure no one has been able as yet to feel, notwithstanding all possible care and expense." In a foot note to the English translation, the translator, Forster, says: " Dr. Linnaeus has had since 3rd of October, 1763, a fine Tea shrub brought him from China by Captain Carl Gustav Eckeberg, which is, as far as we know, the only one in Europe." Such a feat in those days deserved to be honored. For in those days accidents innumerable, aside from the jarring of cannon, must have pressed sorely against the successful introduction of living plants. Another Swedish botanist, Dr. Sparmann, made a voyage to China with Captain Ekeberg, and in 1779 named a genus of trees, native of the Cape of Good Hope, Ekebergia, in his honor.

This tree belongs to the same natural order, Meliaceae, as our well-known China tree, Melia azederach. Sparmann was one of the naturalists that accompanied Captain Cook in his voyage around the world in 1772.