Tags: Orchidaceae | specimen

After World War II, Professor Genkei Masamune of Taihoku Imperial University returned to Japan. The Orchidaceae specimens he took back became a part of the botanical collection in Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History, located in Odawara City, Kanagawa Prefecture. This collection includes 78 precious Orchidaceae type specimens. The associated information (referential literature, released date and collecting information) have been published by Ken Inoue, Teruo Katsuyama, Hideo Takahashi and Mamoru Akiyama in Journal of Japanese Botany (Inoue et al., 1998). Due to the publishing of the article, the type specimens are revealed again after missing more than 70 years. After field trips to Japan, we have found that there are more than 1,000 Orchidacea specimens, collected around Taiwan by Noriaki Fukuyama, Kokichi Segawa, Tokio Suzuki, Syuniti Sasaki, and Genkei Masamune, still left in Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History. These specimens, along with the type specimens mentioned above, are Taiwan’s most valuable assets in the earliest time. The images of all Orchidaceae specimens have been taken in the two years since 2007 under the funding from the National Science Council’s “International Collaboration and Promotion of Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Project” and the assistance from Mr. Teruo Katsuyama of Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History. The digital collection will be available on-line for cross-examination research in plant taxonomy in order to fill the information gap of digital collection on Taiwan’s Orchidaceae and make the national biological database more complete.

National Taiwan University Herbarium Digital Archives Project
National Taiwan University