SHIRASAWA Yasuyoshi, Homi Iconographie des essences forestières du Japon

Stafleu-Cowan, V, 11.901 ; not in Nissen.

First edition.

Yasuyoshi Shirasawa (1868-1947), also known as Homi Shirasawa, began his career as a botanist working alongside Tomitaro Makino, known as ‘the father of Japanese botany’. A doctor of forestry science, the first president of the Forestry Association of Japan and a member of the forestry science bureau and forest inspector, Shirasawa named many of Japan’s native plants, including the conifer Picea koyamae and the lime tree Tilia kiusiana.

Stafleu mentions one volume of text for volume I, but the text for volume II is unknown to him (“no copy with text seen”). According to the notice given by the Museum of Natural History, the text (in French) was distributed at the time of the 1900 Paris World Fair.

The plates list 162 species with their Latin and Japanese names. As well as a large general view of the tree, they show cross-sectional details of the trunk, branches and seeds. It was in this publication that the presentation of dendrological sections in perspective was applied for the first time.

Complete sets of the two atlases with 162 plates are very rare; the KVK electronic catalogue for the most part locates only the first volume, or simply the text volume without the atlases.

Occasional foxing, small tears to text leaves, first leaf in each volume with slight marginal waterstain.