GMELIN, Johann Georg, a distinguished German naturalist, was born Aug. 12, 1709, at Tübingen. Soon after graduating as M.D., at the early age of nineteen, he went to St Petersburg, where, in 1731, he was appointed professor of chemistry and natural history. He was afterwards sent by the Empress Anna, along with G. F. Müller and a scientific party, to explore Siberia, which he penetrated as far as the Lena. After an absence of nine years and a half, Gmelin returned to St Petersburg, and published his Flora Sibirica. On revisiting Germany in 1747 he was chosen professor of chemistry at Tübingen, where he died in 1755, not long after the publication of his Reise durch Sibirien, or, Travels in Siberia. Linnaeus named a genus of Asiatic plants Gmelina in honour of him.