Johann Christian Buxbaum was a German naturalist who, at the invitation of Peter the Great, served as botanist to the new Physic Gardens in St Petersburg from 1721. In 1724, he joined the Russian diplomatic mission to the Ottoman Empire led by Alexander Rumyantsev. He took advantage of the tour to collect botanical specimens from Greece, Turkey, Azerbaijan and the shores of the Caspian Sea. These he published in this work, printed in five volumes between 1728 and 1740. The final two volumes were completed and published posthumously by Buxbaum’s colleague at St Petersburg, fellow botanist Johann Georg Gmelin (1709-55).