Name In Japanese: 牧野 富太郎
Pronunciation: makino tomitarō
Period: 1862 to 1957

Makino Tomitarō was a pioneering Japanese botanist. As a student of Linnaeus, he was one of the first Japanese botanists to classify Japanese and Asian plants taxonomically, earning him the sobriquet the Father of Japanese Botany. He documented some 50,000 specimens, many of which are found in his Makino’s Illustrated Flora of Japan.

Tomitarō was born in 1862 the late Edo period, when Japan was in tumult after the arrival of Commodore Perry’s black ships in 1853. The month before Tomitarō was born, fellow Kōchi native Sakamoto Ryōma defected from the Tosa domain, ultimately precipitating the overthrow of feudalism.

He was born into a wealthy sake brewing family in Sakawa village. A sickly child, his parents and grandfather died when he was young, and he was raised lovingly by his grandmother. At seventeen, Tomitarō went to study in Kōchi city at Kōchi Junior High School where his teacher Naganuma Kōichirō introduced him to the new science of botany. Tomitarō was an eccentric child who embarrassed his family by talking to plants. Photographs from his later years suggest he never lost his sense of playfulness.

Despite dropping out of school after two years, he quickly became proficient in English and geography, besides botany. In 1880, he became a teacher at Sakawa primary school and published his first academic botanical paper. At nineteen Tomitarō visited Tōkyō in 1881 to see the Second National Industrial Exhibition, where he bought a microscope and books. He also went to hear lectures on botany at the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce.

In 1884, Tomitarō moved to Tōkyō to study botany at the Faculty of Science of Tokyo University. At that time, Japanese researchers sent plants abroad for identification. Tomitarō sent some samples to the Russian authority Maximowicz who praised Tomitarō’s skill as an artist. Tomitarō married in 1890 and had thirteen children.

Tomitarō made his living teaching at the Imperial University College of Science in Tōkyō, and writing and illustrating books on botany. However, his travels put a heavy strain on his finances. In 1927, Tomitaro received a Doctor of Science, but later regretted it, feeling that it made him ordinary. He resigned from the university in 1939 after serving for forty-seven years and focused on publishing. In 1948, he was invited to the Imperial Palace to give a lecture on botany for Emperor Hirohito. Makino named over 2,500 plants, including 1,000 new species and 1,500 new varieties. He also personally discovered about 600 new species. Tomitarō died in 1957 aged 94.