Autumn Flowering. Nippon Daisy, Nipponanthemum nipponicum, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
When Japan was still virtually inaccessible to foreign travellers - American admiral Perry only adventured here in 1852 - Carl Johann Maximowicz, director of the Botanical Garden of St Petersburg, Russia, ventured there on his round-the-world journey 1853-1857. As a botanist he trod the footsteps of those intrepid naturalist forebears Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828), the 'Japanese Linnaeus', and Philip Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), whom I've often mentioned in these pages.
Maximowicz traveled widely in Japan under often extremely trying circumstances, and he made a huge collection of Japanese plants. Among these he collected - and later described scientifically - this magnificent Daisy in what was then called Jedo or Edo and which we know today as Tokyo. Nippon Daisy was soon afterwards imported into Europe and made its way across the Atlantic to become widely disseminated on the northeastern seaboard of the USA, especially on Long Island; hence its local name: Montauk Daisy.
This photo was taken in the tiny secluded plot in the Hortus devoted to Japanese plants in honor of Thunberg.
Autumn Flowering. Nippon Daisy, Nipponanthemum nipponicum, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
When Japan was still virtually inaccessible to foreign travellers - American admiral Perry only adventured here in 1852 - Carl Johann Maximowicz, director of the Botanical Garden of St Petersburg, Russia, ventured there on his round-the-world journey 1853-1857. As a botanist he trod the footsteps of those intrepid naturalist forebears Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828), the 'Japanese Linnaeus', and Philip Franz von Siebold (1796-1866), whom I've often mentioned in these pages.
Maximowicz traveled widely in Japan under often extremely trying circumstances, and he made a huge collection of Japanese plants. Among these he collected - and later described scientifically - this magnificent Daisy in what was then called Jedo or Edo and which we know today as Tokyo. Nippon Daisy was soon afterwards imported into Europe and made its way across the Atlantic to become widely disseminated on the northeastern seaboard of the USA, especially on Long Island; hence its local name: Montauk Daisy.
This photo was taken in the tiny secluded plot in the Hortus devoted to Japanese plants in honor of Thunberg.