Japan and the orchid

[Leslie Alldritt]

Dear Colleagues:

I have a colleague at my college who is writing a book on orchids. Not my area of expertise, to say the least! She is planning to start writing a chapter book on botanical exploration and art related to Japanese orchids and the “opening” of Japan to the West in the 1820s. She is thinking her main personality is PF VonSiebold (German doctor/explorer), hopefully unearthing some interesting stuff about Vanda falcata and other coveted Japanese orchids.

Can you think of any databases or resources that would help her with anything on this topic—the wider context or the specifics of VonSiebold’s time in Japan? She is also interested in early-mid 19th c Japanese nature art and aesthetics as it may relate as well. I realize the apt material is in Japanese and I may help her with this depending on what comes to light.

Thanks in advance for any ideas on this topic.

Best,

Les

Les Alldritt, Associate Professor of Religion, Northland College, Ashland, WI.

[Scheid, Bernhard]

The name is actually Phillip Franz von Siebold (1796–1866), whose legacy is split between many places in Europe including  Leiden, Munich and Vienna. No comprehensive database yet as far as I know. His famous description of Japan, Nippon, was available once at the Kyushu University Museum from where it disappeared but may be found with the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. He was indeed interested in plants. Names like Ginkgo and Paulownia (in honor of the Russian-Dutch queen of his time) go back to Siebold. For any research, the Siebold Museum in Leiden is probably a good place to start.

 

Bernhard

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[Judith Fröhlich]

Dear Prof. Alldritt,

As mentioned by Bernhard Scheid: Vienna (the Österreichische Gartenbau-Gesellschaft),
Bochum and Leiden have archival materials. The mentioned Kyushu database was constructed
by Prof. Miyazaki Katsunori, who is one of the authors of the article below.

The article focuses on Siebold’s activities as a horticultural entrepreneur –
and not on his better-know reputation as a botanist – so this might relate to your colleague’s interest,
considering the orchid love in the nineteenth-century West.

In European gardens, there are still a lot of Japanese shrubberies imported in the 19th c.,
(then highly popular, and some of them considered invasive species now)
and I assume that these shrubberies were the focus of Siebold’s short-lived horticultural company.
But since the authors of the article know the archives, they might be in position to answer if Siebold
introduced orchids among other plants – or if the plant hunters searching the forests in
Brazil were more successful in conquering European and North American markets.

Thijsse, Gerard, Isabel Tanaka-Van Daalen and Katsunori Miyazaki, “The Royal Society for the
Encouragement of Horticulture in the Netherlands,” Seinan Journal of Cultures, 34:1 (2019), 47–70.

Also, I assume that your colleague is aware of Siebold’s Japan flower book in various editions and languages
(and varying quality of illustrations – I don’t know if it includes orchids):

Siebold, Philipp Franz von and Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini,
Flora Japonica, sive plantae quas in imperio Japonico collegit, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1835–1844).

For Japanese horticultural tastes and activities in the nineteenth century,
the following might be references – if you can help your colleague to read
(again I don’t know if Hirano deals with orchids among other flowers such as the popular chrysanthemums):

Egakareta dōbutsu, shokubutsu: Edo jidai no hakubutsu-shi = Pictures of animals and plants: natural history in the Edo period, a digital exhibition provided by the National Diet Library Tokyo, URL: https://www.ndl.go.jp/nature/index.html

Hirano Kei, Jūkyū seiki Nihon no engei bunka: Edo to Tōkyō, ueki-ya no shūhen (Tokyo: Shibunkaku, 2006).

I am looking forward to reading the book of your colleague.

Best wishes,

Judith Vitale

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[Alexander Vovin]

If my aging memory does not betray me, a considerable part of unpublished Siebold's materials can be found at the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum. Sven Osterkamp, who is currently the head of the Japanese Language and Literature Dept. there did, I believe, an outstanding job on cataloguing and publishing some of these materials. As this is very far from my own interests, I recommend contacting Sven directly: sven.o...@rub.de.

Best wishes,

Alexander Vovin
Membre élu d'Academia Europaea
Directeur d'études, linguistique historique du Japon, de la Corée et de l'Asie centrale

ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES EN SCIENCES SOCIALES;

CENTRE DE RECHERCHES LINGUISTIQUES SUR L'ASIE ORIENTALE

Membre associé de CENTRE DE RECHERCHES SUR LE JAPON

Laureate of 2015 Japanese Institute for Humanities Prize for a Foreign Scholar

Editor-in-chief, series Languages of Asia, Brill

Co-editor, of International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics, Brill

PI of the ERC Advanced Project, AN ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE JAPONIC LANGUAGES

105 Blvd Raspail, 75006 Paris

sasha...@gmail.com
https://ehess.academia.edu/AlexanderVovin

https://www.edj-vovin.com/

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[Hilary K. Snow]

Dear Prof. Alldritt,

I would also recommend your colleague contact Rachel Saunders at the Harvard University Art Museums who has been doing some work on flowers in Japanese as part of the Feinberg collection show she just curated. She even did some virtual programming with the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard, including one on the magnolia seiboldii which was named after von Seibold.

Hilary K. Snow

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Honors College

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Hilary K. Snow, PhD

Honors College Faculty

University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

[Daniel Botsman]

Dear Prof. Alldritt, 

Your colleague may already know this, but Stephen A. Spongberg’s 1990 book, A Reunion of Trees: The Discovery of Exotic Plants and Their Introduction into North American and European Landscapes (Harvard UP) has a very useful overview of the history of European botanical research and “discoveries” in East Asia.  Von Siebold’s contributions, including many specific plants, are discussed on pp. 100-107.   From a quick perusal I did not see anything about orchids, but there is discussion of his introduction of new varieties of forsythia, wisteria, hydrangea, flowering crabapples and the "Korean mountain ash" to Europe from Japan. 

Certainly a good topic for the (Northern) spring! 

Dani Botsman

[Radu Leca]

Dear Professor Alldritt,

Here are some works on the topic in Japanese:

ŌBA Hideaki 大場秀章, Ōba hideaki chosakusen I shokubutsugakushi shokubutsu bunkashi 大場秀章著作選Ⅰ植物学史・植物文化史 [The Selected Works of Ōba Hideaki: I. History of Botany and Cultural History of Plants], Yasaka Shobō, 2006;

ŌBA Hideaki, Edo no shokubutsugaku 江戸の植物学 [Edo Botany], Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1997; YAMAGUCHI Takao, Shiiboruto to Nihon no shokubutsugaku シーボルトと日本の植物学 [Siebold and Japanese Botany], CALANUS Special Number 1, 1997.

Best wishes,

Radu Leca

Institute of East Asian Art History

Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies

Heidelberg University

https://en.mtk-online.urz.uni-heidelberg.de/person.php?n=280

https://uni-heidelberg.academia.edu/RaduLeca

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[Gouranga Charan Pradhan]

Dear Professor Alldritt,

National Museum Of Japanese History (Rekihaku) did a 6 years project from 2010 through 2016. You can find the details at the following link. They also did an exhibition, if I remember correctly, and probably published an exhibition booklet as well.

https://www.rekihaku.ac.jp/research/list/joint/2010/siebold/index-j.html

The website also provides Siebold’s resources available at various libraries all over the world including in Europe and US and some of the previous research on him.

 

Warm Regards

Gouranga, Nichibunken

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[McVey, Kuniko Yamada]

Dear Professor Alldritt,

FYI, "Flora Japonica" is digitized and made available by the Kyoto University here.

Flora Japonica, sive, Plantae quas in Imperio Japonico collegit, descripsit, ex parte in ipsis locis pingendas curavit Dr. Ph. Fr. de Sieboldis 

https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb00000001

Best,

Kuniko Yamada McVey

Kuniko Yamada McVey マクヴェイ山田久仁子

She/Her/Hers

Librarian for the Japanese Collection

Harvard-Yenching Library

2 Divinity Avenue

Cambridge

Massachusetts 02138

v. 617-495-3395

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To: pm...@googlegroups.com <pm...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [PMJS] Japan and the orchid

 

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[Leslie Alldritt]

Dear Colleagues: Thanks much for your very helpful replies to my orchid query. I will let the listserv know when the book is published. 

Best,

Les

Leslie D. Alldritt, Associate Professor of Religion, Northland College, WI., USA