Species Gerbera speciosa

For Traugott Gerber (1710–1743), German medical doctor, naturalist and explorer. He registered as a medical student at the University of Leipzig in 1730 and obtained a doctorate for his thesis, De Thoracibus, in 1735. Between 1739 and 1741 he led several expeditions on the Don and Volga rivers to search for medicinal plants and herbs and served as curator of the oldest (medical-pharmaceutical) botanical garden in Moscow from 1735–1742. He served in the Russian army in Finland in 1742. He was the author of Dissertationem Physicam de Plantarum Transpiratione and was a close friend of Swedish botanist Linnaeus, who published the genus Gerbera in 1758. Some sources also include his brother Fr. Gerber, who collected plants in the West Indies, in the commemoration.