57 
The Vegetation of Japan. 
Curiosity drove people into little explored parts of the country 
to discover curious or unusual plants for this purpose. Also, very 
many plants were imported from China and Corea or even from the 
tropics. The introduction of foreign plants took place not only in 
recent years, but in ancient times for economic, pharmaceutical, 
and other purposes. Cvyptomevia japonica, for instance, which is so 
widely cultivated all over the country, is said to have been imported 
from Corea in prehistoric times. Rice and various other grains 
must have been brought by our ancestors from somewhere abroad. 
History tells us that the orange, or at any rate a kind of orange, 
was imported for the first time in the year 70 A.D. The Corean 
medical art was introduced into Japan in 510, and with this came 
also pharmaceutical botany. In 701 a physic garden was established, 
and medical botany was taught there. Afterwards very many 
plants possessing medical value were introduced from China and 
Corea, and in later years many economic and garden plants also. 
Sometimes the introduction was made quite by chance, e.g., in 799 
a foreigner is said to have arrived in Central Japan, having drifted 
ashore on the waves, and he brought with him some seeds of the 
cotton-plant. 
These introduced plants were not always indigenous to China 
or Corea. The Chinese imported various plants into their own 
country from their southern and western neighbours ; e.g., according 
to the history of the Han, the Chinese General Chang K’ieng who 
was despatched about 139 B.C. by the Emperor Wu on a diplomatic 
mission to a neighbour living to the north-west of China, brought 
back the vine from western Asia about 120 B.C. After the discovery 
of America, very many American plants were introduced by the 
Spaniards and Portuguese into the Philippines and the East Indian 
Archipelago. Their cultivation spread rapidly over the neighbouring 
parts of the Old World, and they found their way also into China. 
These plants may possibly have been imported into Japan directly 
or through China, and throve there equally well with the indigenous 
forms. 
The first European who came over to Japan and made a 
botanical collection was Andreas Cleyer. He came with a Dutch 
Ambassador about 1675, and stayed in Western Japan four years. 
Afterwards he published a book containing illustrations of 1,360 
species of plants. Then George Meister who knew Cleyer arrived 
in Japan in a similar manner, and published in 1692 an account of 
his journeys and observations. Just after him, in 1690, Engelbert 
