Specimens Collected on the Black Ships Exploring Expeditions to Japan

• Title

  Specimens Collected on the Black Ships Exploring Expeditions to Japan

• Authors

  J. Wynns

• Description

  In 1852 the United States launched a naval expedition to Japan under the command of the famous Commodore Matthew C. Perry. The notion of 'manifest destiny,' having become a domestic reality, still enchanted the young nation. Ostensibly the Perry Expedition had two general aims: 1) To establish avenues of trade between America and the Far East. Hitherto Japan was a nation closed to Western ships and influence; and 2) To exchange scientific and cultural information with this foreign nation, to the mutual benefit of each. The Perry Expedition was not the first American attempt to penetrate Japanese waters, but it was the first successful one. The Expedition agriculturalist, Dr. James Morrow, and the interpreter, Rev. S. Wells Williams, were permitted ashore at the ports of Shimoda, Hakodate and Yokohama. There they collected living and dead plants, shells, seeds, items of cultural significance, etc. Sometimes American items were contributed in exchange. At the end of the mission, the collection of dried plants was given to the celebrated Harvard botanist, Asa Gray, for identification and classification. Dr. Francis Boott of Kew Gardens identified the sedges (Carex spp.), Daniel C. Eaton of Yale the ferns, William S. Sullivant the musci (mosses) and William Harvey of Dublin the algae. A second exploring mission, the United States North Pacific Exploring Expedition, led by Captains Cadwalader Ringgold and John Rodgers, sailed from 1853-56. The expedition carried the enthusiastic botanist Charles Wright, an avid and lifelong plant collector. He and his assistant James Small collected plants in Japan (including the Bonin and Ryukyu Island Groups) as well as in Hong Kong, Siberia, the Okhotsk Sea, the Bering Strait, Alaska and California. In America, Gray and the same group of botanists identified and classified these much larger collections. Additionally, Miles J. Berkeley and Moses A. Curtis identified the fungi, Edward Tuckerman the lichens, and Leo Lesquereux worked with Sullivant on the musci. In Japan these expeditions are known as the sailing of the 'Black Ships', so-called because of the sooty appearance of the coal-burning American steam frigates. Their botanical collections are significant in many ways. It was from the study of the Wright collections that Gray was able to formulate his now-famous theory of a 'floristic link' between the vegetation of Japan and that of the Eastern United States. Some type specimens (representing taxa previously unknown to science) were collected on these expeditions. In some cases the collections also provide a historical and biological record of places which are now developed and have different ecologies. While the greater part of these specimens are in the Harvard University Herbaria, and some can be found in the United States National Herbarium at the Smithsonian Institution, a good portion of these historically significant botanical collections are now housed in the Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden. These Black Ships Specimens have been catalogued and imaged as a part of the Garden's ongoing effort to image its entire herbarium collection and make the images available online. In addition, some of the Perry specimens from Harvard have been imaged and are represented herein.