Gerard Thijsse
The adventures of the living plants in the shipments with natural history collections from Japan are dealt with in many publications (MacLean, 1973; 1975; 1978). Less attention has been given to the dried collections sent from Japan. That is why I will try to answer here the questions of how and when the herbarium collections, constituting the Herbarium Japonicum around 1880, came to Leiden. Who collected them, and when and where? With the help of the existing literature and the archives of the National Herbarium, I will try to piece together its history.
Most of the specimens in the Herbarium Japonicum have been assembled by Von Siebold and the way how he had brought them together will have been an example for later collectors in Japan. After E. Kämpfer (1651-1716) and C.P. Thunberg (1743-1828), who collected in Japan in the 17th and 18th century respectively, Von Siebold was the first to assemble an extensive herbarium collection of Japanese plants.
In his herbarium not only many plants from the surroundings of Nagasaki are present, but also specimens from places, such as Hokkaido, impossible for Von Siebold to have visited himself. At the time Von Siebold arrived at Deshima, Japan was still a closed nation. The Dutch were the only Europeans who were allowed to have limited contact with the Japanese. In fact they were more or less imprisoned on the artificial island Deshima in the Bay of Nagasaki, which they were only allowed to leave with the permission of the Japanese authorities. This immediately raises the question how Von Siebold could make such a large herbarium collection, with plants from all over Japan, when his freedom to move was so restrained?
Von Siebold had several different opportunities to collect plants. Like Thunberg before him (Kimura, 1979: 17), Von Siebold was allowed to collect medicinal herbs in the surroundings of Nagasaki, and the plants he collected during these trips will have ended up in his herbarium. During his stay in Japan, Von Siebold was given the opportunity to make several longer excursions during which he also collected plants. This was however a costly operation, because the Dutch had to pay the costs for the whole party that had to accompany him. Von Siebold only made five of such excursions in the suburbs of Nagasaki.
Some of the plants collected during these excursions can still be traced in his herbarium.
Another source of specimens were his botanical gardens. One of the first things Von Siebold did when he was on Deshima was restoring the botanical garden there. In this garden he raised the living plants and seeds he had collected or received from his Japanese friends and students. From the end of the 18th century onwards the Japanese became more and more interested in western science, especially in medicine and natural history. Von Siebold was allowed to teach several Japanese students on Deshima. Through his contacts with his Japanese students he received many living and dried Japanese plants from places in Japan he was not allowed to visit. Already in 1825 he wrote that he had assembled more than 1,000 species in this garden. Of these plants herbarium collections were made, and during his stay in Japan Von Siebold must have made dried collections of most, if not all the plants he grew in his botanical garden on Deshima. These specimens form the major part of his herbarium collection (Zuccarini, 1844: 432).
Besides on Deshima Von Siebold also got permission to teach outside Deshima on Narutaki. Here he also laid out a garden, mainly with medicinal plants. Also from the plants in this garden he prepared dried specimens.
Von Siebold also instructed some of his pupils to collect plants for his herbarium. In May 1824, Von Siebold sent two of his pupils to the provinces Higo and Hizen (present Kumamoto and Nagasaki prefectures), to collect living and dried botanical specimens. One of them was Mima Zunzo (x-1825), the head of the school at Narutaki.
Another good opportunity for Von Siebold to collect plant specimens should have been the court journey in 1826. Because Von Siebold saw to it that his Japanese assistant Kumakichi accompanied him during the court journey, he must have planned to make botanical collections during this trip. Von Siebold especially had trained Kumakichi for the preparation of herbarium specimens. Strangely enough Yamaguchi (2003: 22-23) only found 18 specimens which, according to the notes on the labels, had been collected during this court journey. Probably neither Von Siebold nor Bürger were given much freedom, or sufficient time, to collect and dry many specimens. This thought is in contradiction however with the fact that the so-called Pierot collection contains a large number of plants collected during one of the court journeys. Another reason for the fact that now only very few specimens of Von Siebold's collection can be attributed with any certainty to this court journey, might be that there were just very few opportunities along the route to collect interesting specimens. From Shimonoseki on the court journey went over sea till Osaka. From there they travelled over land to Tokyo. From Thunberg we know that he could not collect as many plants as he expected, because he had to travel in a norimono, a Japanese carrying chair. As the Japanese farmers weeded out the roads and farms along the route to Tokyo very laboriously, very little worth while must have been there to collect, except at Hakone Mountain where the road passed frequently through the forests, and where many wild plant species grew (Kimura, 1977: 13). This must still have been the same in Von Siebold's time.
Only few references to collecting activities by Von Siebold or his assistant Bürger can be found in the travel records Von Siebold published in his book Nippon. The ones I found all have been written when they passed through this mountainous part of Japan. On May 24 he wrote that he had found many new plants in the dense forests (Von Siebold, 1897: 209), and on May 26: “have been busy examining and drying the collected plants till late in the night” (Von Siebold, 1897: 210).
Von Siebold intended to stay in Tokyo for a long period. He expected to have more liberty to travel in Japan during his stay there, than during the court journey (Yamaguchi, 2003: 6), and it may well be that he also expected to collect the plants lacking in his herbarium then. Unfortunately for Von Siebold he had to leave for Deshima together with the other members of his travelling party.
Whatever the reason may be that now so few specimens can be attributed to the court journey, it is a fact that Von Siebold received many specimens from his Japanese collaborators at this occasion, In botanical interesting areas along the route Von Siebold asked several people to collect plants, and send them to him at Deshima (Von Siebold, 1897: 165-166). In Mumenoki he had asked a landlord to collect plants in the surroundings there. When Von Siebold met him again during the trip back to Deshima he was told that he already had sent a collection of plants one month ago (Von Siebold, 1897: 211).
On the way from Deshima to Tokyo and back, Von Siebold met his Japanese correspondent Mizutani Sukerok (1779-1833), and his later collaborators Okochi Sonsin (1796-1882) and his younger brother Ito Keiske (1803-1901). They later sent dried plants to Deshima (Von Siebold, 1897: 171). From Okochi Sonsin he received many cryptogamic plants. During his stay in Tokyo he received a collection of dried plants from Katsuragawa Hoken (1797-1844) and a very beautiful collection of illustrated wood samples from Mogami Tokunai (1755-1836).
In Thunberg's time the cattle brought by the ships to Deshima were fed grasses, herbs and young branches of trees by some Japanese who came to the island (Kimura, Y, 1977: 13). From this material Thunberg collected specimens for his herbarium. In a similar way Von Siebold collected plants from the fodder for the goat he was allowed to keep. Von Siebold got permission to receive daily grass and herbs for his goat, and he sent out servants to collect herbs in the surroundings of Nagasaki. He also sent out his former gardener to collect plants in more remote places. In this way he collected several hundreds of new and rare species. (letter August 15, 1864).
Von Siebold certainly made the most of all given opportunities and in this way he could ship a large number of herbarium specimens to the Netherlands.