Japanese-born Mexican botanist. Dr Eizi Matuda was born in Nagasaki in 1894 and received his botanical training at the Taihoku Imperial University in Formosa (Taiwan) between 1911 and 1916. He remained in Taihoku for several years as a researcher in the department of botany of the National Institute of Natural Sciences, before moving to Mexico in 1922 to join a Japanese agricultural colony. He settled at Escuintla in the state of Chiapas, in 1928 became a naturalised citizen of Mexico, and in 1932 founded the Matuda Herbarium, now a part of the National Herbarium at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City. His plant collecting was concentrated principally in Chiapas, often in remote areas, which he reached by mule, but also in the state of Mexico and in Belize. From 1951 until his death, he was professor and senior curator of the Instituto de Biologia at UNAM. The University of Tokyo awarded him a doctorate in 1962 for his thesis, Estudios Taxonomicos y Ecologicos del Sureste de Chiapas, Mexico. His most useful paper, Las Araceaes Mexicanas (1954), summarizes all the known Aroids of Mexico, using dichotomous keys as well as descriptions. Dr Matuda died on a field trip in Peru, following the Second Latin American Botanical Congress in Rio de Janeiro in 1978. About 76 species and five genera are named after him. His surname has been spelled in two different ways, Matsuda and Matuda.

Sources:
T.B. Croat, 1978, "Dr Eizi Matuda: Mexican Aroid Specialist 1894-1978", Aroideana 1(1): 27
T.B. Croat, 1998, "History and Current Status of Systematic Research with Araceae , Aroideana, 21
T.P. Ramamoorthy, 1987, Taxon, 36(6): 588-589.