While not well known in most places, Filipp Franz von Siebold is a famous name in the Netherlands and perhaps surprisingly in Japan as a well respected 19th-century doctor and botanist.

The German scientist came to Japan in 1823 where he worked in Dejima Island and later in a medical school in the Nagasaki countryside. During his time there he discovered and catalogued many new plant species, and found ways to transport them to the Dutch Indies, and even the Netherlands where some of them still grow today in the Horris Botanicus.

In 1829 Siebold was arrested for smuggling maps and placed under house arrest for about a year before he was banished and sent back to the Netherlands with an an enormous amount of plants, books, local items, and maps.

Once back in the Netherlands he set up a large curiosity cabinet and began teaching Japanese language, culture, and medicine at the university.…