1. The Impact of Importing Western Books on Flora and Fauna

During the Edo period, European naturalists such as Kaempfer, Thunberg, and Siebold came to Japan, and many books were imported from Europe.

D'Amboinsche rariteitkamer is a research report on marine invertebrates and minerals in the Maluku Islands west of New Guinea, which contains 60 illustrations. During the Edo period, this Dutch book was usually called just Rariteit—a shorted form of its full title. Figure 1 shows 12 specimens of sea urchin, seven of which were copied into Senchu fu by KURIMOTO Tanshu (Figure 2). Oranda kaidukushi <別10-30> is another book held at the National Diet Library, and contains half of the pictures in D'Amboinsche rariteitkamer.

千蟲譜 3巻 [1]

Duidelyke vertoning (Figure 1) is a translation into Dutch of Weinmann’s Phytanthoza iconographia, which arrived in Japan sometime before 1773 and was widely read. Fig. 1 shows a cocoa pod. Kurimoto Tanshu, a physician working for the Shogunate, accurately transcribed 86 pictures from Duidelyke vertoning into his Yomei iri somoku zu (Fig. 2, from the collection of the Tokyo National Museum). The National Diet Library also holds a copy of a book entitled Weinmann shasin ryaku, that is a roughly copied transcription of Yomei iri somoku zu and differs significantly from the original.

洋名入草木図

東京国立博物館所蔵

物印満写真略

This book was authored by Thunberg, who visited Japan in 1775, and Fig. 1 shows the title page. Siebold gave a copy of this book as a farewell gift to ITO Keisuke, a physician based in Owari (present-day Aichi Prefecture), when Keisuke left Nagasaki. Keisuke then wrote Taisei honzo meiso (featured in the next section) based on Flora Iaponica. Fig. 2 shows an inscriptions on the endleaf, stating that Keisuke gave this book to his grandson Tokutaro, who followed in Keisuke’s footsteps.

Flora japonica（日本植物誌）

Flora japonica（日本植物誌）

2. Taisei honzo meiso, compiled by ITO Keisuke

In compiling Taisei honzo meiso, editor ITO Keisuke arranged each scientific name in Flora Iaponica alphabetically and added its Chinese and Japanese names. This was the first Japanese book to adopt Linnaean taxonomy. Although Siebold originally collaborated with Keisuke in the compilation of this book, he was accused of being a spy and deported before the project was finished. Because of this, Keisuke felt the need to hide Siebold’s contribution to the book behind a pseudonym.

Figure 1
Shown here is the beginning of the volume. Several handwritten annotations, including the Japanese word asahikaede, a kind of maple, in katakana are in Siebold’s hand. Siebold’s remarks are indicated by the symbol ㋛ ( ). Later editions replaced this symbol with a 〇.

泰西本草名疏

Figure 2
A portrait of Thunberg is on the right-hand page, and the body of the text starts on the left-hand page. ITO Shunmin Taigyo (伊藤舜民戴堯) is an alternate form of ITO Keisuke. Faced with the need to expunge Siebold’s name, Siebold’s remarks are indicated by the symbol 〇.

泰西本草名疏

Figure 3
In these explanatory notes, Keisuke indicates that the Japanese names that have been annotated with an 〇, as seen in Figs 1 and 2, were compiled by WAKAI Hachiro. Notes in the margin (indicated with an arrow) further explain that WAKAI Hachiro was born in Izu but has passed away.

泰西本草名疏 2巻付録2巻 上下合冊

Figure 4
Similar to the section shown in Fig. 3, the pseudonym WAKAI Hachiro has been replaced with the descriptive term raihaku seii (来舶西医 : a practitioner of western medicine from overseas). The note in the margin stating that WAKAI Hachiro is dead has also been deleted. It is unclear exactly when Keisuke made these corrections, but it is likely to have been after 1854, when the United States–Japan Treaty of Peace and Amity was signed.

洋名入草木図

東京国立博物館所蔵

Figure 5
Again, this is a later version of the section shown in Figs 3 and 4. With the signing of the Netherlands–Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1858, the order to expunge any mention of Siebold was rescinded, and the expression raihaku seii was again changed to seii shii-shi (西医椎氏 : Dr. Castanopsis*) According to the collected letters of ITO Keisuke (書簡集, NDL Call No. 特7-646), this material was published in 1863.
*Castanopsis:Castanopis is a genus of evergreen trees belonging to the beech family. The kanji for Castanopis, 椎, was also used in the pseudonym WAKAI Hachiro, 稚膽八郎.

泰西本草名疏 2巻付録2巻 [1]

IWASAKI Kan’en was an official of the Shogunate who became acquainted with Siebold and met with him several times during the spring of 1826, at which time this sketch was made. The note on the left side gives a detailed explanation of his clothing.

3. A Wealth of Information

There were a number of masterworks of natural history that appeared during the late Edo period, including Honzo zufu (本草図譜), Baien hyakka gafu (梅園百花画譜), Soka zufu (草花図譜), and Somoku zufu (草木図説) as well as KURIMOTO Tanshu’s Gyokaifu (魚介譜) and Mokuhachifu (目八譜). Also around this time, in addition to hand-drawn illustrations, naturalists increasingly used ink impressions of leaves, called in’yo zu (印葉図).

The top half of the illustration on the right-hand page is the fossil of a variety of sea urchin, while the illustration on the left-hand page is the fossil of a bivalve. This is the only illustrated encyclopedia of shell fossils that was published during the Edo period and includes 112 fossils. Although the author’s real name is not specified, many fossils collectors of the day were from Shikoku, Kinki, or Owari (present-day Aichi Prefecture), the book’s preface was written by KINOUCHI Sekitei (木内石亭), a well-known mineral collector, so the author is presumed to be from the Kansai region. There is another book, called Kaiseki gafu (貝石画譜, <198-144>) which is considered a transcription of roughly 60% of Kanso roku.

This book includes illustrations of 654 species of insects, frogs, lizards, and other animals. The butterflies shown on the right-hand page are great purple emperors, with the upper one being female and the lower one being male. The upper half of the left-hand page are a kind of fly (Bizone hamata) and the lower half shows Hesperiidae butterflies. All of these are drawn most accurately. This book was authored by KURIMOTO Tanshu and is well known as the first illustrated encyclopedia on insects to be published in Japan. There are several manuscripts of this work that are of inconsistent quality due to the divergent skills of the transcribers. This particular manuscript was transcribed by HATTORI Sessai, an expert painter, and is likely to capture the essence of the original.

千蟲譜 3巻 [1]

Shown here is a juvenile spotted-tail flounder from the first volume of Kurimoto Tanshu’s fish and shellfish encyclopedia, called Risshi gyofu (栗氏魚譜), which includes 31 illustrations. Although Risshi gyofu comprised 20 or more volumes in total, there is no complete set extant. Individual volumes are held by the National Diet Library, the Tokyo National Museum, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company’s Kyo Shooku, and other facilities. It is therefore difficult to provide a general characterization of the series, which includes about 1,000 pictures, nearly half of which were transcribed from Shurin-zu compiled by MATSUDAIRA Yoritaka.

This book features 235 plants and animals that were mentioned in the Man’yoshu, each displayed together with a poem and written in man’yo gana but without any annotations. Shown on the right-hand page is an eagle and on the left-hand page is a mandarin duck. The author, KAMOCHI Masazumi, was a samurai of the Tosa domain (present-day Kochi Prefecture) and a student of Japanese literature who wrote Man’yoshu kogi (万葉集古義), a tome comprising 141 volumes of commentary on the Man’yoshu. Man’yoshu hinbutsu zue and its counterpart, Man’yoshu hinbutsu kai (万葉集品物解), published in 1827, are a part of the Man’yoshu kogi.

The flower on the right is Typhonium blumei Nicolson et Sivadasan, an araceous plant, and the one on the left is Rosa hirtula Nakai var. glabra Makino, a kind of rose. Both were illustrated in 1829. Baien hyakka gafu, was written by MORI Baien, a Shogunate samurai, and includes four volumes about spring plants, eight about summer plants, four about autumn plants, and one about winter plants, for a total of 17 volumes and about 1,300 pictures. This book is one of the richest illustrated botanical encyclopedias of Edo period, and its scientific accuracy is top notch. Chapter 3 of this exhibition introduces MORI Baien’s other works such as Baien kinfu (梅園禽譜), Baien gyofu (梅園魚譜), and Baien kaifu (梅園貝譜).

This book comprises descriptions of fish, shellfish, and birds as well as illustrations and explanations of Japanese cherry species. It also includes a section on annual events. It is therefore what is known as a saijiki (歳時記), reference book of seasonal materials and events for composing haiku. The section shown here describes Japanese radishes. NOMURA Ryuei I was a physician from Owari (a western part of present-day Aichi Prefecture), and MIZUTANI Toyobumi is his student. The National Diet Library also holds Ryuei’s notes on horticultural varieties, entitled Asagao Shakuyaku Baiyoho (牽牛花芍薬培養法, <特1-445>).

This great pictorial encyclopedia series comprises 92 volumes with more than 1,900 illustrations by IWASAKI Kan’en, who was a vassal of the Shogunate. Distribution of this series began in 1830 to those who has preordered starting in 1830. The earliest four volumes were woodblock prints but the remaining 88 volumes were all transcribed by hand. Distribution ended in 1844 after Kan’en’s death. This material shown here was distributed to the Tayasu family. The rose on the right-hand page, Rosa banksiae Aiton, was imported between 1716 and 1735, while that on the left-hand page, Rosa chinensis Jacq., was imported as early as the Heian period. Both species came from China.

These are the distribution notes for Honzo zufu. In this section, Kan’en mentions copies presented to the 11th Shogun, TOKUGAWA Ienari, between 1830 and 1841. In the second and third lines, however, there are notes about copies presented to Shoheizaka Gakumonjo and Bakufu Igakukan, two institutions of higher learning operated by the Shogunate. Other pages include distribution lists of more than 30 people including Ieyoshi (heir of Ienari), Ii Kamon-no-kami, HOTTA Masaatsu, and Tayasu family.

The color illustration and the monochrome one to the right might look like mushrooms but are, in fact, flowering plants. These are presumed to be the oldest sketches of Balanophora japonica Makino. This book was authored by MIZUTANI Toyobumi and is based on his teacher ONO Ranzan’s Honzo komoku keimo, to which MIZUTANI added his own figures, notes, and other quotations. This work comprises 30 volumes in total, a part of which is missing from the National Diet Library’s collection. A samurai of the Owari domain, MIZUTANI was a member of the Shohyakusha (嘗百社) group of naturalists in Owari together with his students OKUBO Masaaki (大窪昌章) and ITO Keisuke (伊藤圭介).

This is an in’yozu (ink impression) of a plant that was included in Shokubutsu zusetsu zassan, an encyclopedia edited by ITO Keisuke. This plant in question is a kind of orchid called a Calanthe discolor Lindl. This impression was made by OKUBO Masaaki, a samurai of the Owari domain and member of the Shohyakusha. In’yozu are created by coating leaves and flowers ink and then pressing the plant on paper. Naturalists from Owari often used this technique, and Masaaki was said to be particularly skillful. This sample also shows finely copied veins and petals.

Oplopanax japonicus Nakai is a deciduous shrub from the Araliaceae family that commonly grows beneath coniferous trees deep in mountain forests and has large leaves with erose edges. This ink impression was made in 1827, while Ito was harvesting medical herbs in Nikko together with UDAGAWA Yoan (宇田川榕菴) and others.

Petasites japonicus Fr. Schmidt is a variety of Japanese butterbur that grows wild in the Tohoku region and farther north. Its leaves grow to be upwards of 1.5 meters in diameter, and the stalks grow to be 2 meters in length, so this plant is large enough to be used as an umbrella. This impression is about 1 meter in diameter. The hole on the right is at the base of the leaf blade and the rod-like object lying next to the hole is the stalk.

秋田蕗印葉図

These draft manuscripts of Todo ihitsu were written by OHARA Todo, a surgeon in the service of the Kii domain, and after his death were compiled into book form by his grandson Hachisaburo Yoshinao. The National Diet Library holds three draft manuscripts containing 44 items that were not included in the printed version. Shown in Fig. 1 is a description of the blue tide, and above the main text is a note saying that this section was intended for a later volume and should be deleted from here. Ultimately, however, this section was not included in the printed work. Shown in Fig, 2 is the title page of the draft manuscript for vol. 2, which includes annotations by Yoshinao.

This foldable brochure comprises a detailed list of famous sights in Edo and includes 150 entries of beautiful scenery and living things. The top column in the figure contains descriptions of famous spots for camellia and skylark, while the middle column has the same for bush clover and pampas grass. In the bottom column, the author names Honjo, Komatsugawa, and Mukojima as good places for watching crane; Terashima Shirahigesha-Mori and Senju for Japanese crested ibis, and Ueno Nakado, Shinobazu no Ike, Sensoji, Higasi Honganji, and Sarue Juganji for stork.

Shabenkai (赭鞭会) was a group of naturalists whose members included MAEDA Toshiyasu (前田利保), Lord of the Toyama domain, other vassals of the Shogunate, and a merchant in medical herbs. They gathered regularly to discuss and create illustrations of flora and fauna. This section is dated November 7, 1837, (Old Style). The illustration on the right-hand side is a sketch of a dried stonefish acquired by Shikien, a vassal of the Shogunate who was also known as SABASE Hyozaburo. On the left-hand side is a sketch of a dried sting ray acquired by another vassal of the Shogunate named Kenpo or Shidara Sadatomo. Fish were preserved by drying, since the technology for using liquid preservatives had not yet been introduced to Japan.

MAEDA Toshiyasu, Lord of Toyama, was an early proponent of morphological classification. These materials contain his attempts to classify fishes into three categories, but the work was unfinished. This picture shows the beginning of the book. The end of the preface is on the right-hand page, while on the left-hand page is commentary by the author indicating that eels belong to the non-legged fishes category.

The picture on the right-hand page is Subula dimidiate, while that on the left-hand page is Terebra crenulate, both kinds of snails. The one on the left also shows the seal of HATTORI Sessai, an accomplished painter of natural history. Mokuhachi fu is a well-regarded conchological encyclopedia that is also the largest of the Edo era, consisting of 15 volumes containing 1,169 illustrations. The author is a vassal of the Shogunate named MUSASHI Sekiju. Although it had been assumed that all the illustrations in this book was made by Sessai, recent scholarship indicates that other, unspecified painters were also involved. For example, the Terebra crenulate on the left is considered too rough to have been executed by Sessai.

This Japanese–Chinese dictionary spells out each Japanese name faithfully to its pronunciation, including regional names and aliases. Another unique point of this book is that it contains plenty of horticultural breeds, including 130 morning glories, 131 Amur adonises, and 236 camellias. This series originally consisted of 13 volumes, but only eight are extant today. The author is assumed to be from Edo.

This is the first Japanese book to adopt Linnaean taxonomy which classifies plants according to the number and arrangement of their stamens and pistils. It contains about 1,200 breeds. For example, the author classified creeping saxifrage as “class 10, order 2,” indicating 10 stamens in two arrangements. Commentary is on the right-hand page, with a monochrome overall view and a painted magnified view of flowers on the left page. A unique aspect of this book is that it was the first in Japan to show magnified views of flowers, stamens, and pistils.

Soka zufu was lost after the death of its author, IMURO Shozaemon. But some of ITO Keisuke’s works held by National Diet Library, including Shokubutsu zusetsu zassan, append parts of Soka zufu, and some other original volumes remain extant. These materials contain more than 1,850 articles in total and were part of what was one of the largest encyclopedias of flora from the Edo era. Fig. 1 shows two flowers, both of which are mutated breeds of pink. The red characters 草花図フ (soka zufu) were added by ITO Keisuke. Fig. 2 shows commentary on the Japanese bellflower. The article describes the growth of the plant precisely—from its sprouting in February and blooming in June to the bearing of fruit in September (all dates are Japanese Old Style). It also gives detailed descriptions of the characteristics of leaves and flowers.

4. Takizawa Bakin’s Love of Birds

TAKIZAWA Bakin (滝沢馬琴), the author of the famous novel Nanso Satomi Hakken Den (南総里見八犬伝), loved birds and caught little birds by himself since his childhood. The following Kinkyo (禽鏡) includes articles on a rare bird presented from the former lord of Matsumae Province and another hard-to-breed bird kept for eight years long by Bakin.

禽鏡

(from the collection of the Toyo Bunko)

Kinkyo was compiled and annotated by TAKIZAWA Bakin, with illustrations painted by ATSUMI Kakushu, who was Takizawa’s adopted son. This shows the beginning of volume 1. The following picture is of a Horsfield's hawk cuckoo, a species related to the little cuckoo. This series consists of six volumes and includes 311 illustrations of about 200 species. Most of the illustrations are transcriptions, some from works in the possession of feudal lords that were rarely seen.

This picture is of Temminck's tragopan, a kind of sibley that is indigenous to Tibet and Sichuan province in China. This bird was imported on a Qing ship in 1826, and another individual was also imported in 1844. The numbers of this species have sharply declined in recent years.

禽鏡

(from the collection of the Toyo Bunko)

This is an ornithic treatise by SATO Seiyu, a surgeon in the service of the Mito domain in present-day Ibaraki Prefecture. This book contains no illustration but introduces 416 species of domestic and foreign birds, with a preface that was written in 1808. TAKIZAWA Bakin had this material transcribed. This picture is from the end of the book. Notes in red ink show the development of the manuscript, and the date of the end of transcription is written on the left end in black ink. Both are autographs of Bakin.

5. Reference Books by Ito Keisuke

ITO Keisuke not only collected a great number of materials on natural history from the Edo period, he also compiled reference books such as Shokubutsu zusetsu zassatsu (植物図説雑纂, <本別6-9>, 254 volumes), Kinka shokubutsu zusetsu (錦窠植物図説, <寄別11-13>, 11 volumes), and Kinka kin fu (錦窠禽譜, <寄別11-10>, 23 volumes). These books include materials by naturalists from Owari and Edo, books published in the Owari region, and Keisuke’s own drafts and notes. Here are some examples. “Kinka” (錦窠) is one of Keisuke’s pseudonyms.

Shown here are excerpts from Ninjin baiyo setsu, a collection of early essays by physician and naturalist ITO Keisuke from Owari. Fig. 1 shows the foreword and Fig. 2 is the first part of the main text. Keisuke indicates that this book was written while he was harvesting medical herbs at Nikko with UDAGAWA Yoan (宇田川榕菴) and others.

This material contains illustrations of potted Dendrobium moniliforme L., a kind of orchid, with notes that introduce 15 superior breeds of this vegetation, divided into three ranks of three, five, and seven. According to an annotation in the left margin side, the author was the son of MIZUNO Tadatoshi (水野忠暁), an author of Somoku kin’yo shu (草木錦葉集), the breed shown in the illustration, gyokan kongo (魚貫金剛), was found by Kokei-an, and this material was published in 1837.

YAMAMOTO Boyo (山本亡羊) established a private school called Yamamoto dokushositsu (山本読書室) in Kyoto, and YAMAMOTO Keizan (山本渓山) was his sixth son. Published in 1854, this work includes text based on Yamamoto Boyo’s opinions as recorded by NISHIMURA Kansen (西村寒泉) and OKA Yasusada (岡安定), who were both Boyo’s students, and illustrations by Keizan. Since Yamamoto Dokushositsu rarely issued broadsides, this material was likely distributed specifically at the start of a new year. The plant shown here, called korotsutaruraria, is a smooth crotalaria that is indigenous to southern China and Taiwan. According to the commentary, smooth crotalaria was imported to Japan around 1850 by the Dutch.

This material was edited by TACHIBANA Goen Kagumi (橘五園香久美), corrected by Ryuuntei-Gorei (龍鱗亭五嶺), and published using a printing block owned by Shunroen-Bigan (蕣露園美丸). It was published in 1820, and it names 140 breeds of morning glory with detailed descriptions of their morphology. This is one of the very few directories of morning glories from Owari. It is also a good resource for identifying unusual breeds that appeared during the first morning glory boom in 1818.

Most of dacho, or ostrich in modern Japanese, that were introduced during the Edo era were actually southern cassowaries. At the end of this material, the author writes that this bird had been imported into Nagasaki by the Dutch in 1836, who called it a kazuwarusu. According to the Misemono zasshi (見世物雑志) by KODERA Gyokucho, this material is from a pictorial newspaper which was sold when southern cassowary was on display at Seiju-in Temple, Nagoya, in 1837. A sitting man attempts to feed the southern cassowary a burning stick.

6. Herbarium Specimen

Herbarium specimens are preserved vegetation. This kind of flower or leaf pressing desiccates the object for research. The National Diet Library holds more than 10 herbarium specimens made during the Edo period. Although many of them have considerably damage, most are recorded on microfilm.

This material primarily consists of 157 herbarium specimens and six ink impressions of vegetation harvested at the Koishikawa yakuen, a herbal garden run by the Shogunate. They were sometime during 1812 or 1813 and are the earliest materials now extant in Japan. This material includes specimens of vegetation that existed from the early 18th century to the early 19th century.

Primrose became well known during the latter half of the 18th century, and there were many breeds exhibiting mutated petals or coloration. The two types shown above have six petals, whereas wild breeds usually have five petals. At the lower left is a rare breed with extremely small flowers. This book includes 58 breeds in total. The author was Shibue Chohaku, a physician in service to the Shogunate, who managed the Sugamo Yakuen herbal garden for the Shogunate and also kept sheep.

サクラサウ