2023-04-28 15:57:48
Er can strangle lanterns and buckle iron fences. The wisteria with its delicate, hanging flower clusters has a bear power. The original Wisteria sinensis plant, which the German doctor and natural scientist Philipp Franz von Siebold brought to Europe in the 19th century, still blooms in the botanical garden in Leiden. From Japan, not China as the species name would suggest. The plant doctor had a total of 120 boxes in his luggage when he set foot on European soil in Amsterdam on July 7, 1830. In addition to stuffed mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and invertebrates, they also contained around 500 plants, about half of which had survived the transport, including Hylotelephium sieboldii, a species of sedum, i.e. sedum plant, which the medical officer in the Dutch service used during had hung on the ship’s mast during the crossing.
“One day the physiognomy of our landscape will be transformed by the wonderful flora of Japan, when elms and acacias, the red maples and paulownias will rise on the hills and slopes of the mountains of Europe,” Siebold wrote in 1823 shortly after his arrival in Japan his uncle. In fact, the Würzburg native has enriched the European flora, even if one could happily do without the rampant Japanese knotweed. The invasive neophyte may not be planted in this country. Otherwise, however, the local garden culture is hardly conceivable without Siebold’s harvest. Magnolias and forsythias usher in spring in parks and gardens, wisteria adorns trellises and house facades, the blue bell tree adorns parks and botanical gardens, multiflora roses adorn wild fruit hedges, clematis lianas shimmy through garden shrubs, hostas crouch next to hydrangeas in the shade.
Court astronomer of Edo
However, the blue garden hydrangea is not suitable for climate change because it needs water. It already bears it in the genus name: The Hydrangea macrophylla, in Greek the water collector with the large leaves, reminds with its variety name ‘Otaksa’ of the young woman who voluntarily allowed herself to be labeled a courtesan in order to be able to live with her beloved man. Otaki Kusumoto, Siebold’s Japanese partner, had to stay behind with her daughter when the plant hunter was banished from Nippon, the land of the rising sun. He had exchanged maps with the court astronomer of Edo, now Tokyo, and that was punishable by death. After bad experiences with Christian missionaries, Japan sealed itself off from the rest of the world in 1693. The Dutch traders were also only allowed to settle on an artificial island off Nagasaki and were not allowed to enter the mainland without a special permit.
Drawing by Siebold with a group of Dutch traders, ca. 1825 on the island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki
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Image: epd
The court astronomer died in prison. Siebold was lucky. He was allowed to return home and was held in high esteem by the Shogun. Among the people he enjoyed the nimbus of a miracle doctor. After all, his Japanese students had learned from him how to successfully operate on cataracts. Back in Europe, he settled in Leiden in 1830. In order to be able to finance his works, including the “Flora Japonica”, Siebold visited the European royal courts and was also received and honored by Tsar Nicholas I. Prince Metternich received him in Vienna, and in Berlin he became friends with Alexander von Humboldt, who was 27 years his senior.
Deutzia and Lilies
In Leiden, Siebold had acquired a plot of land which he turned into a garden. In this publicly accessible “Jardin de acclimatation” 44 species of tree peonies bloomed, as well as red maples, chrysanthemums, lilies and deutcia. Above all, however, the blue ‘Otaksa’ hydrangea delighted the visitors, who now wanted to plant these exotic plants in their own gardens. Therefore Siebold founded a company in 1842 to propagate and sell Japanese plants. In 1853 the Americans forced the economic opening of Japan to world trade, in 1859 Siebold returned and began teaching again. However, after intrigues by Dutch diplomats, the chief medical officer lost his teaching position. In 1861 he left Japan for good. He died in Munich in 1866.
Unlike the Germans, the Japanese never forgot him; in Nagasaki they built him the first museum. The Siebold House cherishes his memory in Leiden, and the Siebold Society commemorates him with a museum in Würzburg. In spring, the Siebold primrose and Magnolia sieboldii bloom in the East Asia section of the Frankfurt Botanical Garden.
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