Hayata Bunzō

Hayata Bunzō

Hayata Bunzō ( Japanese 早 田 文 藏 ; * December 2, 1874 in Kamo , † January 13, 1934 in Shinjuku , Tokyo ) was a Japanese botanist . He researched the flora of Taiwan - at that time under Japanese rule - and dealt with questions of the taxonomy and systematics of plants. Its botanical author abbreviation is " Hayata ".

Life

Hayata Bunzō was born in Kamo in the Japanese prefecture of Niigata in 1874 . He had two siblings, an older brother and a younger brother. His father, Hayata Shinkichi, died when the boy was six years old. After primary school he was able to attend a private secondary school from 1887. The death of his grandparents in quick succession in 1889 and 1890 meant that Hayata had to drop out of school and take an apprenticeship. At that time, as he later reported, he had already made the decision to study botany. For the time being, however, he had to stick to self-taught studies and observing the local flora, supported by correspondence with the Tokyo Botanical Society (now The Botanical Society of Japan ), of which he was a member from 1892.

In 1895 Hayata Bunzō went to Tokyo to continue his school career there. After completing secondary school (1897) and high school, he was able to begin studying botany at the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1900 . During this time his mother, Hayata Hatsu, died in 1896. Hayata Bunzō completed his university studies in 1903, but remained as a doctoral student under Professor Matsumura Jinzo at the University of Tokyo. At the same time he got a job as an assistant at the Tokyo Botanical Garden . Shortly after obtaining his doctorate in late 1907, he married Amaya Kuni. The two had a son and three daughters.

Hayata remained employed at the botanical institute of the university, where he was promoted to lecturer in 1908, to associate professor in 1919, in 1920 he was given a full professorship, and in 1924 he also became director of the Botanical Garden. A chronic heart condition that plagued Hayata before he was 50 years old made his health worse around 1929. However, he was able to recover and moved to a house by the botanical garden in order to be able to do his work at the university more easily. Hayata Bunzō died on January 13, 1934 at the age of 59. He was buried in Aoyama Cemetery. Hayata Bunzō is portrayed as a serious, frugal person who gave nothing to leisure activities. He pursued his professional goals ambitiously and diligently, and his dealings with others were characterized by friendliness and compassion.

Scientific achievements

The first publications Hayatas, published in 1903, dealt with the local flora of a marsh area, its written in the same year thesis at the university had the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae) Japan on the subject. In his doctoral thesis he dealt with the flora of Taiwan - he had already undertaken a first botanical excursion to this island in 1900 and subsequently published several articles on his plant collections. The Taiwanese flora formed a focus of his studies for the next few years. In addition to trips to Taiwan, they took him to Europe in 1910/1911 to inspect various herbaria , and to Indochina in 1917 and again in 1921/1922 to investigate floristic relationships there with Taiwan.

After a few preliminary works, Icones Plantarum Formosanum appeared from 1911 , in which the entire flora of Taiwan should be treated. The number of known species rose steadily in the course of Hayata's research: while in 1906 he still counted 1999 species in his Enumeratio Plantarum Formosarum , in 1911, at the beginning of the Icones series, there were already 2660, and in 1921 when the series was her End found 3658 species from Taiwan were described. Due to the abundance of newly found plants, the scope of the icons was expanded after the publication of the first two volumes. Hayata planned the series to be 15 volumes, but after the tenth volume it was discontinued.

In the following years he took on more duties at the chair of botany, in his first years as professor and director of the botanical garden he published only a few articles. He did not take up the work on the flora of Taiwan later either, but he donated a substantial sum that he had received when he was awarded the Prince Katsura Memorial Prize to continue this research. Hayata Bunzō devoted himself to the general systematics and taxonomy of plants. First he worked out a classification of the ferns, for which he examined the characteristics of the stele . He later extended this system to the seed plants . He continued to work on the theory of botanical taxonomy and evolution. He countered the prevailing understanding of the origin of species and the phylogenetic conception of definable ancestors of today's species with a "dynamic system". He assumed that a species could descend from several different ancestors and allowed different classifications, depending on the examined aspects, side by side.

Hayata described a total of over 1600 different taxa . Many of them come from Taiwan, but also plants from Japan, China and Vietnam are among them. A list of Taiwanese plants published in 2003 as part of the Flora of Taiwan shows that 549 species, which make up 14% of Taiwan's flora, were described by Hayata Bunzō. Hayata himself saw the discovery of the conifer Taiwania cryptomerioides as his outstanding contribution to the study of Taiwan's flora. His later theoretical works on the systematics and taxonomy of plants had no lasting influence on science.

Honors

After him the plant genera were Hayataella Masam. from the family of the redness plants (Rubiaceae) and Hayata Aver. named from the orchid family (Orchidaceae).

Fonts

Hayata's publications span a period of over 30 years, during which he wrote more than 150 scientific articles and books. Between 1903 and around 1920 it was mainly floristic works, from 1920 onwards the topics of taxonomy and classification of plants shifted. In 1935, the second volume of his work on taxonomy was published posthumously. Much of his work is written in Japanese, he also spoke English, French, German and Latin.

Some of his work on Taiwan's flora:

• 1906: On Taiwania, a new genus of Coniferae from the island of Formosa . In: Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society . Vol. 37, pp. 330-331.
• 1908: Flora Montana Formosae. An enumeration of the plants found on Mt. Morrison, the central chain, and other mountainous regions of Formosa at altitudes of 3,000-13,000 ft. In: J. Coll. Sci. Imperial Univ. Tokyo, Vol. 25, pp. 1-260.
• 1911: Materials for a Flora of Formosa . In: J. Coll. Sci. Imperial Univ. Tokyo, Vol. 30, pp. 1-471.
• 1911–1921: Icones Plantarum Formosanarum . 10 vols. Bureau of Productive Industries, Government of Formosa, Taihoku, Taiwan.

Work on the taxonomy of ferns using the stele:

• 1918: Notes on Archangiopteris and Protomarattia . In: Botanical Magazine Tokyo . Vol. 32, pp. 237-244. (Original in Japanese)
• 1918: On the systematic importance of the stelar system . In: Botanical Magazine Tokyo . Vol. 32, pp. 253-262, pp. 279-297. (Original in Japanese)
• 1919: Protomarattia, a new genus of Marattiaceae and Archangiopteris . In. Botanical Gazette . Vol. 67, pp. 84-92.
• 1927–28: On the systematic importance of the stelar system of the filicales. I . In: Botanical Magazine Tokyo . Vol. 41, pp. 697-718; II . Vol. 42, pp. 301-311; III . Vol. 42, p. 334-348. (Original in Japanese)
• 1929: On the systematic importance of the stelar system in the Polypodiacea . In: Flora . Vol. 124, pp. 38-62.
• 1930: On the systematic importance of the stelar system of the phanerogams . In: Botanical Magazine Tokyo . Vol. 44, pp. 598-616. (Original in Japanese)

Writings on the taxonomy and systematics of plants:

• 1920: Explanations to "The natural classification of plants according to the dynamic system" . In: Tōyō Gakugei Zasshi . Vol. 36, pp. 1-8. (Original in Japanese)
• 1921: The Natural Classification of Plants according to the Dynamic System . In: Icones Plantarum Formosanarum . Vol. 10, pp. 97-234.
• 1931: The Dynamic System of Plants . Iwanami shoten, Tokyo. (Original in Japanese)
• 1931: About the "dynamic system" of plants . In: Reports of the German Botanical Society . Vol. 49, pp. 328-348.
• 1933: Plant Taxonomy. Part 1: more naked . Uchida-rōkaku-ho, Tokyo. (Original in Japanese)
• 1933: Fundamental aims of systematic botany . In: Botanical Magazine Tokyo . Vol. 47, pp. 461-465. (Original in Japanese)
• 1934: Discussion of taxonomic concepts . In: Botany and Zoology, Scientific and Applied . Vol. 2, pp. 79-88. (Original in Japanese)
• 1935: Plant Taxonomy. Part 2: More Covering . Uchida-rōkaku-ho, Tokyo. (Original in Japanese)

supporting documents

• Hiroyoshi Ohashi: Bunzo Hayata and His Contributions to the Flora of Taiwan . In: Taiwania . tape 54 , no. 1 , 2009, p. 1–27 ( edu.tw [PDF]).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]

Web links

• Author entry and list of the plant names described for Hayata Bunzō at the IPNI

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Hayata is the family name, Bunzō the first name.