Von Siebold and the “Flora Japonica”

Abstract

PHILIPP FBANZ VON SIEBOLD was born at Würzburg on Feb. 17, 1796. He studied at his home university, where he received his doctorate in medicine in 1820. In 1823 he arrived at Decima, Japan, as a military doctor, but he also devoted himself to the natural history, medicine, ethnology, ethnography, and history of Japan. At Nagasaki he founded a medical school and clinic, but for political reasons some of his ever-increasing botanical, zoological, mineralogical, and geological collections were confiscated by the Japanese authorities in 1828; fortunately, not long before he had sent many specimens to Leyden. He also sent a living tea plant to Java, thus originating tea culture on that island. In 1827, Siebold published a small catalogue of Japanese economic plants. On Dec. 30, 1829, political unrest was so acute that he was ordered to leave Japan, and he then settled in Holland. He met the German singer, J. J. Hoffmann, who was also a linguist. In 1845, Hoff-mann published a description of Siebold's books, manuscripts, and maps which he had brought from Japan. Zuccarini, the Munich botanist, helped with the classification of botanical material. Publication of the “Flora Japonica” was begun in 1835 and continued until 1842, but after Zuccarini's death, von Siebold discontinued further publication and the materials became the property of the Government Herbarium at Leyden, where the Von Siebold Collection is still visited and consulted by botanists. Von Siebold's influence on horticulture was even greater. His imported specimens formed a nucleus for horticulture in Belgium and Holland, but the original “Jardin d'Acclimatisation: Nippon” no longer exists. His zoological collections are preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Leyden and his ethnographical material at the Leyden Ethnographical Museum. Von Siebold died at Munich on Oct. 18, 1866.