The Japanese illustrated botanical work Kai, or The Encyclopedia of Flowers and Plants, by Shimada Mitsufusa and Ono Ranzan, published in 1759 and 1763, provided concise textual descriptions of 200 plant species accompanied by printed illustrations. The authors intended to depict plants more accurately than previous authors to help readers identify species from illustrations. The illustrations indeed differed from those in previous works, but they also differed from those of later Japanese botanical experts educated in Western botany and its classification system. The illustrations thus received criticism from Japanese and Western botanists after the Meiji period. The French botanist Paul Savatier, who translated the textual descriptions of Kai into French as Livres Kwa-Wi without reproducing its illustrations, added some footnotes on several species with criticisms of their illustrations. However, a comparison between Savatier’s translation and the original Japanese text reveals certain differences in the use of words, especially those related to the shapes of leaves. The critical comments by the French botanist and the slightly different wording used in the original text seem to indicate that modern Western and traditional East Asian botanists placed importance on different parts of plants, thus seeing plants differently. In this presentation, I will show that the ways of depicting flowers and leaves differed between the authors of Kai and subsequent botanists educated in Western botany. I will then place these differences in the broader historical contexts of Japanese and Western botany and botanical illustrations.

In this presentation, I will discuss Udagawa Youan’s two botanical books, Shokugaku Keigen (Principles of Botany) and Shokugaku Dokugo (Botanical Monologue), as well as his botanical illustrations compiled and preserved at Leiden University and elsewhere, such as Honzo Shashin and Honzo Suisha, which Youan offered to Philipp Franz von Siebold. Shokugaku Keigen was the first book to fully introduce the theory and classification system of modern Western botany to Japan. Shokugaku Dokugo is thought to have been a practice work for writing Shokugaku Keigen, but it is useful because it contains Youan’s original thoughts and opinions in a language easily understood by a broad readership. In this writing, he emphasized the importance of illustrations for conveying botanical knowledge. The words in the titles of the above two works of illustrations “shashin (写真)” and “suisha (推写)” meant “capture the truth” and “ink-rubbing prints,” respectively, during the Edo period, while the former means photography in current Japanese. Youan particularly emphasized the importance of this method of ink-rubbing prints for creating botanical illustrations. Having published Seimi Kaiso (Foundations of Chemistry), Youan is also known for introducing Lavoisier’s chemistry. He also left some illustrations related to his chemical studies. I will discuss the relationship between these illustrations and his botanical illustrations, as well as their significance for the history of Japanese botany and chemistry.