Greetings from the Netherlands

For the National Herbarium of the Netherlands (NHN) it is an honour and pleasure to contribute to this joint exhibition of the University of Tokyo and Leiden University on Von Siebold’s significance for natural science in general, and for botany in particular. That significance can hardly be exaggerated, either for our institute or for Japanese botany.

Our institute was founded as the Rijksherbarium in 1829 in Brussels by King William I at the time when Belgium and the Netherlands were united in one kingdom following the Napoleonic era. When in 1830 the independence struggle of the Belgian people started with riots in Brussels, Von Siebold-just returned from his prolonged stay in Deshima-was instrumental in rescuing our collections and shipping them to Leiden, where he also took residence himself. Together with his ethnographical, mineralogical and zoological collections of the National Museums of Ethnology and Natural History in Leiden, Von Siebold’s Japanese herbarium in the NHN and his living plant collections in the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden are the single largest assembly of Japanese natural and cultural heritage outside Japan. We are very proud to preserve and study that heritage together with our Japanese friends and colleagues, and to display large parts of it to the general public. I urge you to come and visit Leiden to see these treasures for yourself in the Hortus Botanicus of Leiden University, the National Natural History Museum Naturalis, the Von Siebold Huis, and the National Museum voor Volkenkunde (ethnology). The highlights of Von Siebold’s botanical collections in Leiden are also visualised and documented on the interactive CD ROM "Von Siebold’s Botanical Treasures in Leiden" , available at the Tokyo University Museum.

For the study of the flora of Japan, Von Siebold’s significance is comparable to that of Carolus Linnaeus for the flora of the world. This year we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of Linnaeus’ Species Plantarum published in 1753. Von Siebold could build on the work of one of Linnaeus’ students C. P. Thunberg (1743-1828) when he and Zuccarini embarked on the ambitious Flora Japanica project. Although that Flora project was never finished, the rich collections assembled by Von Siebold, his Japanese students, and his successors continue to play a crucial role in the botanical inventory of Japan and in the monitoring of floristic changes due to human interference and global change. This is partly because these collections are rich in type specimens, the "golden standards" which link a plant name to an organism, and thereby to a species, which in turn can be defined as an interbreeding evolutionary lineage. For a comprehensive inventory of the plant species on our planet, ongoing exploration and collecting remains necessary. With this exhibition on Von Siebold we therefore not only celebrate his great role in Japanese botany but the continuing importance for botanical collections for research, conservation and sustainable use of our natural resources.

On behalf of Leiden University and the National Herbarium of the Netherlands I send best wishes and cordial greetings for this exhibition and the important and excellent work of the Tokyo University Museum.

Pieter Baas

Director of the Nationaal Herbarium Nederland

and Professor of Systematic Botany, Leiden University