Ranzan and Mitsufusa SHIMADA ONO

Ranzan and Mitsufusa SHIMADA ONO
Kai [Selected Flowering Plants, new proof read edition], 1759
2216

Proof read by Yamamoto Boyo. [N.p.: Koto Shorin (Katsusuke Daimonjiya, Bunseidozoban), 1843. Two parts in 8 volumes, large 8vo (10 1/8 x 7 inches). 200 woodcut plates. Bound in the traditional concertina-form between original limp dark green/grey patterned boards, paper title slip on each volume, all contained within a single dark blue cloth chemise with toggle catches. A fine copy of this later revised edition of this important and "beautifully illustrated" work (Bartlett & Shohara). Each section (the first on "grasses" [non-woody plants] and the second on trees) is presented in four volumes with 25 woodcuts in each volume. The images are generally carefully-composed 'snap-shots' of small sections of the whole plant - but showing enough to include the leaves, flowers and seeds or fruit of each specimen. The wood-cuts are given a visual strength through the use of the convention of showing the upper surfaces of the leaves using black against white, whilst the lower surfaces are shown white against black. Bartlett & Shohara note that the first edition of this work was published in Edo in 1759, and a second, printed from the same blocks as the first with a few additions, was published in 1765. Odo Ranzan was one of the three great figures of the natural history period in Japan, along with Ino Jyaksui and Kaibara Ekken. Today, Ono Ranzan is best known to western botanists for the present work, which he co-wrote with Simada Mitsufusa. "According to the prefaces, this work was started by Shimada alone, but he found himself too busy to carry on with it after he had finished the second volume of eight. He then asked and received aid from Ono Ranzan, who is supposed to have done most or possibly all of the work for the six succeeding volumes ... The Ka-i was the second Japanese botanical work that appeared as a whole in a European language. Savatier and Saba translated it into French, and it was published in 1875. The Ka-i was one of the three Japanese works used in the writing of Franchet and Savatier's Enumeratio Plantarum ... (1875-79). The others were those of Tsunemasa and Iinuma Yokusai" (Bartlett & Shohara p.60). Cf. H.H. Bartlett & Hide Shohara Japanese Botany (Los Angeles; 1961), #29 and pp. 60-61(the earlier editions); cf. A. Franchet & L. Savatier Enumeratio Plantarum Japonia sponte crescentium [Paris:1875-1879); cf. David D. Frodin Guide to the Standard Floras of the World ... second edition (Cambridge University Press: 2001) p.775.

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