Bunzō Hayata

Hayata Bunzo (Japanese早 田 文 藏; born December 2, 1874 in Kamo, † January 13, 1934 in Shinjuku, Tokyo ) was a Japanese botanist. He explored the flora of Taiwan - then under Japanese rule - and dealt with issues of taxonomy and systematics of plants. His botanical author abbreviation is " Hayate ".

Life

Hayata Bunzo was born 1874 in Kamo in the Japanese prefecture of Niigata. He had two siblings, an older and a younger brother. His father, Hayata Shinkichi died when the boy was six years old. After primary school, he was from 1887 attend a private secondary school. The death of his grandparents in quick succession in the years 1889 and 1890 meant that Hayata to leave school and take an apprenticeship had. At this time he had, as he later reported, already made ​​the decision to study botany. For now, however, it had to stay with autodidactic studies and observing the local flora, supported by correspondence with the Tokyo Botanical Society (now The Botanical Society of Japan ), which he was a member since 1892.

In 1895 Hayata Bunzo went to Tokyo to continue his schooling. After the completion of further leading school ( 1897) and high school in 1900, he could begin the botany studies at the Imperial University of Tokyo. During this time his mother, Hayata Hatsu who died in 1896 death falls. His university studies completed Hayata Bunzo from 1903, but remained as a graduate student under Professor Jinzo Matsumura at the University of Tokyo. At the same time he was hired as an assistant at the Botanical Garden Tokyo. Shortly after obtaining his Ph.D. at the end of 1907 he married Amaya Kuni. The two had a son and three daughters.

Hayata stayed busy at the Botanical Institute of the University, where he was promoted to assistant professor in 1908, 1919 Associate Professor, 1920, he received a full professorship in 1924, he became the Director of the Botanical Gardens. A chronic heart condition that plagued Hayata before his 50th birthday, his health deteriorated sharply by 1929. But he was able to recover and moved into a house at the botanical garden to be able to pursue easier for his work at the university. Hayata Bunzo died on 13 January 1934 at the age of 59 years. He was buried in the cemetery of Aoyama. Hayata Bunzo is portrayed as serious, frugal man who was nothing on leisure activities. He had pursued with diligence His ambitious and professional goals, his dealing with others was marked by kindness and compassion.

Scientific achievements

The first publications Hayatas, published in 1903, dealt with the local flora one bog site, its written in the same year thesis at the university had the spurge family ( Euphorbiaceae ) in Japan on the subject. In his doctoral thesis he dealt with the flora of Taiwan - in 1900 he had undertaken a first botanical excursion to this island and published in the wake of his plant collections some items. The Taiwanese flora formed for the years to a focus of his studies. In addition to traveling to Taiwan it brought him 1910/1911 to Europe to consult various Herbaria, 1917 and again 1921/1922 to Indochina to investigate local floristic relations with Taiwan.

After a few leading works appeared from 1911 Icones Plantarum formosanum in which the entire flora of Taiwan should be treated. The number of known species increased in the course of research Hayatas steadily: he Counted in 1906 in his Enumeratio Plantarum Formosarum in 1999 species, so it was in 1911, at the beginning of the Icones series, already in 2660, and 1921, when the series you end found 3658 species from Taiwan were described. Due to the abundance of plants newly found the volume of Icones was expanded after the publication of the first two volumes. Hayata planned the series to 15 volumes, after the tenth band they came to a halt.

In the following years he took on more obligations on the Department of Botany, in his first years as a professor and director of the botanical garden, he published only a few articles. He Work on the Flora of Taiwan no longer picked up later, however, he donated a considerable sum which he had received at the ceremony of Prince Katsura Memorial Prize, for the continuation of this research. Hayata Bunzo devoted to the general systematics and taxonomy of plants. First, he developed a classification of ferns, for which he examined characteristics of the stele. This system, he expanded later on the seed plants. He worked on the theory of botanical taxonomy and evolution. The prevailing understanding of the origin of species and the phylogenetic concept of definable ancestors of today's species he placed a "dynamic system " opposed. He walked away from that one type of several different precursors can be derived and made different classifications, depending on the investigated point of view, side by side.

Hayata described a total of over 1600 different taxa. Many of them are from Taiwan, but also plants from Japan, China and Vietnam are among them. Based on a 2003's as part of the Flora of Taiwan List of Taiwanese plants can be seen that 549 species that make up 14% of the Flora of Taiwan, were described by Hayata Bunzo. Hayata even saw the discovery of conifer Taiwania cryptomerioides as his outstanding contribution to the study of the flora of Taiwan. His later theoretical works on systematics and taxonomy of the plants had no lasting impact on science.

Writings

The publications Hayatas span a period of some 30 years during which he authored more than 150 scientific articles and books. Between 1903 and about 1920, there are mainly floristic works, from 1920 to relocate the topics on issues of taxonomy and classification of plants. Appeared posthumously in 1935, the second volume of his work on the taxonomy. Many of his works are written in Japanese, he also mastered English, French, German and Latin.

Some of his work on the Flora of Taiwan:

Work on the taxonomy of ferns based on the stele:

Writings on the taxonomy and systematics of plants:

Documents

• Hiroyoshi Ohashi: Bunzo Hayata and His Contributions to the Flora of Taiwan. In: Taiwania. Vol 54, No 1, 2009, pp. 1-27 ( http://tai2.ntu.edu.tw/taiwania/pdf/tai.2009.54.1.1.pdf ).