JOURNAL OF THE COLLEGE 01'' SCIENCE, IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY, 

 TOKYO, JAPAN. 



VOL. XVI., ARTICLE 4. 



Revisio Umbelliferarum Japonicarum. 



By 



Y. YABE, Kigakusbi. 

 Assistant in Botany in the College of Science, Imperial University, Tokyo. 



With Plates I— III. 



Some umbelliferous pLants, possessing a strong aromatic constit- 

 uent in their roots, stems and leaves, were highly appreciated in the 

 Chinese Materia medica, and have also been well known to Japanese 

 herbalists from remote antiquity, as is seen in some well known 

 native works, such as Wamyörujushö, Wamyö-honzö &c., which Avere 

 written at the beginning of the ninth century. 



Japanese plants were not, however, known to any Europeans, 

 until Kaempfer who arrived in Japan in the year 1690, who described 

 8 species of this family of plants in his "Amoenitatiim Exoticarurn " 

 (1712). Eighty-five years later, Thuijberg, who also visited Japan 

 mentioned 10 genera and 16 species of the same family in his " Flora 

 Japonica " (1784). Still later, Siebold, in the year 182.3, came to 

 Japan and wrote his "Synopsis Plantaruni Oeconomicarum" (1827), 

 in which he mentioned only 14 species of that family. Since the 

 publication of these pioneer works, our flora has been carefully 

 studied by many eminent botanists, such as Zuccarini, Gray, Miquel 



