In January 1969, the United States and Taiwan governments signed an official agreement of academic collaboration to publish the first edition of Flora of Taiwan. The editorial committee was founded in 1973 and composed of five professors: Hui-lin Li, Tang-shui Liu, Tseng-chieng Huang, Tetso Koyama and Charles. E. Devol. This edition of Flora of Taiwan, completed and published between 1975 and 1979, includes six volumes. There are 562 pages in Volume One, 722 pages in Volume Two, 1,000 pages in Volume Three, 994 pages in Volume Four, 1,166 pages in Volume Five, 665 pages in Volume Six, and more than 5,000 pages in total. The contents include the accepted names and synonyms, descriptions of all taxa, indented dichotomous keys to different taxa, citation of herbarium collections, geographical ranges and habitats, bibliographical references, illustrations and color photographs, directory, and index, covering 233 families, 1,355 genera and 4,220 species of indigenous vascular plants in Taiwan. Written in English, the publication is not only the most completed inventory of vascular plants in Taiwan but also a major achievement and a collaborate work of Taiwanese scholars in plant taxonomy. It is a useful reference book for researchers working on natural resources management, agriculture and forestry industry, education and academic research. It also works as providing a reference to the second edition of Flora of Taiwan. Because the publication is already out of print, the digitization of the first edition of Flora of Taiwan for further online searching, browsing and downloading seems to be right for the time.
The National Science Council asked Professor Tseng-chieng Huang to take in charge of the revision of Flora of Taiwan in 1984. The editors of the second edition of Flora of Taiwan were composed of about 100 scholars, mainly from Taiwan but also including scholars from the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, and China. The publication is written in English, a total of six volumes of completion from 1993 to 2003 in nearly twelve years. The content of this edition includes the accepted names and synonyms, descriptions of all taxa, indented dichotomous keys to different taxa, citation of herbarium collections, geographical ranges and habitats, bibliographical references, illustrations and color photographs, directory, and index of total 4,339 species. Including 1,067 endemic species in Taiwan, there are 4,077 of indigenous species and 262 naturalized and important introduced species documented in the publication. The second edition of Flora of Taiwan also incorporates detail descriptions of the vegetation, uniqueness of flora, and chromosomal information in the documentation. In 2004, the second edition of Flora of Taiwan was awarded "Engler Silver Medal" by International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT).
Irish doctors Augustine Henry came to Taiwan to carry out large-scale plants collecting work in the years of 1892-1895. The geographical coverage is mainly in southern Taiwan, including Takow (Kaohsiung), Ape's Hill(Shoushan), Zhuang Bankin-sing (Wanjin), South Cape (Eluanpi), Tainan, Anping and Danshuei. All specimens collected are stored in the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew in the United Kingdom. Co-specimens were sent to the prestigious herbariums in Europe and the United States for taxonomy research. He then published A List of Plants from Formosa in Tokyo in 1896. This publication documented the information of Taiwan’s indigenous plant species, collected by European explorers since 1854, which is the earliest and most systematic publication about the flora of Taiwan. The sum total of the plant collection in this book is 1,347 species including 628 genera and 1,288 species of phanerogams (of which are 81 species from cultivation and 20 species of from naturalization), and 149 species of cryptogams.
Bunzo Hayata
Bunzo Hayata visited Taiwan more than a dozen times to investigate the local flora between 1905 and 1924. During the ten-year period of 1911-1921, he published ten volumes of Iconum Plantarum Formosanarum, which amazed the western world. This masterpiece documented the thousands of plant species collected by European explorers from 1854 to 1895 and species collected by Japanese scholars after 1895. Total plants in records include 170 families, 1,197 genera, 3,568 species and 79 varieties, of which 1,200 species were newly discovered in Taiwan. The documentations of these plant species are with highly referential values including detailed descriptions in Latin, bibliography, habitats and illustrations. In Taiwan, the copies of Iconum Plantarum Formosanarum are found only three sets and all in poor shape. It damages every time when readers turn the pages. The early completion of the digitization will be necessary.
Yoshimatsu Yamamoto
Supplementa Iconum Plantarum Formosanarum is the publication of Dr. Yoshimatsu Yamamoto, director of Taihoku Imperial University Herbarium. Yoshimatsu Yamamoto, a student of Bunzo Hayata, graduated in 1923 from Department of Botany, Tokyo Imperial University. Yoshimatsu Yamamoto assisted Bunzo Hayata exploring the flora of Taiwan then in 1928 started teaching at Department of Science in Taihoku Imperial University. Yoshimatsu Yamamoto published five volumes of Supplementa Iconum Plantarum Formosanarum between 1925 and 1932. This publication added the newly discovered species during 1922 -1932 period to provide a supplement to Hayata’s Iconum Plantarum Formosanarum. The documentation of each new species includes detailed descriptions in Latin, literatures, habitats and illustrations. The most well-known species is Epilobium nankotaizanense Yamamoto which is the rare and valuable species listed by Culture Heritage Preservation Act in Taiwan.
Kudoa is a series of manuscripts, created by Genkei Masamune, Tokio Suzuki and Noriaki Fukuyama of Taihoku Imperial University Herbarium to honor Yushun Kudo, a professor of Department of Agriculture and Science and the first director of Herbarium, who died in 1932. Written in Japanese, Kudoa was published from 1933 to 1937 in total five volumes, each containing four issues. Except occasional research papers on the other areas, Kudoa collected the research results of taxonomy and ecology studies mainly based on Taiwan, including regional flora and index of plant name. In most issues, there were additional sections of "excerptions" and "miscellaneous reports"; the former is a number of Japanese abstracts of selected papers from journals of various contents in many countries; the latter includes a variety of topics of conversation, editorial notes, and committee reports.
Northern Karafuto is the now the northern part of Sakhalin, occupied by Japan in 1920-1925. Yushun Kudo, at age of 32, led a plant research project under the commission of Japanese Sakhalin military administration to investigate the resources of Northern Karafuto. Yushun Kudo arrived in Northern Karafuto to carry out the plant collection and investigation more than a month in July, 1922. Yushun Kudo visited the area two more times in August, 1922, and in August-September, 1923, to complete the investigation of 1500 sites. In 1924, he published Flora of Northern Karafuto to present the two-year research results, including scientific names, distribution, taxa of identification, a variety of uses (timber, edible, medicinal, toxic, industrial, green manure, and ornamental uses ), and references. Yushun Kudo was invited to Taihoku Imperial University as both plant taxonomy professor of Agriculture and Science Department, and the director of Herbarium in 1928. The majority of his specimen collections of Northern Karafuto, Hokkaido and other places were also transferred to the Taihoku Imperial University Herbarium and turned into the extremely precious collections as well as essential research materials for the plant studies in the areas at present day.
Chai-yi Yang
From the earliest time there have been many legends associated with flowers of the months and their flower deities. The only official description of flower deities appeared in the writings of Qing scholar Chu-yuan Yu (Yue Yu), though many artists had their own choices in the art works. While most current writings on flower deities are either in a brief introduction or embodied in myths, Chai-yi Yang’s book has a complete discussion and depiction on this topic, with a combination of the botanical research, art interpretation, and fantastic Chinese literatures and myths. Phonetic symbols, citations and contemporary interpretations are included in the context for readers’ convenience. The author specifically requested Dr. Yang Kuo-chen in charge of plant photography, as well as the contributions of plant illustrations from Dr. Chiu-rong Hsu, male God drawings from Mr. Hsi-hsun Chiu and Mr. Ruolong Chiu, and female God drawings from Miss Ler-chen Chen. The author unfortunately passed away just after the completion of the book. The manuscripts, currently stored in TAI Herbarium, are digitized and disseminated on-line for the public.
