Von Siebold's Botanical Treasures in Leiden

Herbarium specimen

Wood samples

Living plants in Hortus Botanicus Leiden

I. de Kort, J. Ridder-Numan,  G. Thijsse, N. Kato & T. Yamaguchi. 

Von Siebold’s Botanical Treasures in Leiden. 

CD-ROM in ETI World Biodiversity Database CD-ROM Series. National Herbarium of the Netherlands.

In the framework of the 400th anniversary of the relationship between Japan and the Netherlands the Universiteit Leiden branch of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands (NHN-L) together with the Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification (ETI) published a CD-ROM on the botanical collections made in Japan during the beginning of the 19th century by Von Siebold and his pupils.

Philipp Franz von Siebold was active as a physician on the island Deshima in the harbor of Nagasaki between 1823 and 1829. His role in introducing western medical knowledge in Japan brought him great fame.

During his stay in Japan and especially during the traditional court journey to the Shogun in Edo (the present Tokyo) he collected many plant specimens. His dried collection is one of the earliest herbarium collections of this extent from Japan, and an important source for newly described Japanese species. The dried collections are housed at the Leiden branch of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands.

Von Siebold and his successors also sent living plant specimens to the Netherlands. Many of those are well known garden species now. In the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden 15 of the original specimens are still flowering.

The CD-ROM gives an illustrated overview of the life and work of Von Siebold and of his botanical collection. There are images of herbarium sheets; of hand coloured plates from the Flora Japonica, issued between 1835 and 1870; of illustrated wood samples donated to Von Siebold by Mogami Tokunai; of some original water-colours of Kawahara Keiga, completed with coloured photographs of live Japanese plants of in total 750 species.

It is the first time that an important part of Von Siebold's botanical collection is made accessible for interested gardeners and botanists. Large part of the collection forms the base of newly described species.

Moreover the CD-ROM gives information on the Universiteit Leiden branch of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands and on the Leiden Hortus Botanicus, including the Von Siebold memorial garden founded in 1990.

This CD-ROM was established thanks to a grant of NWO (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research)). The bio-informatic software was developed by the Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification (ETI) in Amsterdam.

The CD-ROM is available for  EUR 44.95 from the

Publishing Department 

National Herbarium of the Netherlands 

Universiteit Leiden branch 

c/o  Mrs. M. van Zoelen,

PO Box 9514,

NL-2300 RA Leiden

The Netherlands

e-mail Zoelen@nhn.leidenuniv.nl