Gerard Thijsse
It is well known that Blume was very restrictive in distributing duplicate specimens. According to his instructions only duplicate specimens might be withdrawn from the collections.
The first record in the collection management archive concerning the distribution of Japanese duplicates is dated July 16, 1840. In that year Blume had sent some 100 Japanese duplicates to St. Petersburg. To avoid that unique collections were distributed, only completely identified specimens were sent to other institutions. Therefore Blume's relations with the Jardin des Plantes in Paris must have been very good, as he made an exception for this institution. In 1844 they were given nearly 400 Japanese duplicates (phanerogams and mosses), which were not all completely identified. Possibly they also received another set of 112 collections (collection management archive). There was however one restriction, publication of eventual new species was not permitted.
The first record found in the annual reports on the distribution of Japanese collections was in that for the year 1853/1854 (8). Duplicates of Japanese plants were given by Blume to Dr. L.A.J. Burgersdijk, the director of the present Royal Military Academy, where they were going to be used for botanical study (Blume, 1854).
According to the annual report for 1854/1855, G. Bentham in London was given Japanese duplicates but also Von Siebold apparently received some Japanese plants that year (9) (Blume, 1856a). In 1855/1856 C. Koch in Berlin, Von Martius in Erlangen, D.A. Godron in Nancy, and Martius in Montpellier were given some duplicates by Blume (Blume, 1856b). In 1856/1857 A. Maille in Paris was given Japanese plants, and Von Jaeger in Stuttgart was given Japanese ferns (Blume, 1858). According to Blume now only 6 parcels of Japanese duplicates to be distributed were left.