Japanese botanist Ryokichi Yatabe was one of the new wave of modern botanists who emerged in Japan in the late 19th century.

Yatabe completed studies at the United States in 1876, where he became Cornell's first Japanese graduate. He was subsequently appointed the first professor of botany at the University of Tokyo and director of the botanical gardens. He was also a founder of the Botanical Society of Japan in 1882, and its journal, the Botanical Magazine of Tokyo. His Iconographia Florae Japonicae appeared in three parts between 1891 and 1893.

In 1886 Yatabe was made principal of the university's higher teaching college and led the development of teacher training in Japan.

Yatabe met an early death during his summer vacation in September 1899, when he drowned in the sea near Kamakura.

Sources:
Anon., 1899, Botanisches Centralblatt, 80: 320
Anon., 1900, Botanical Gazette, 29: 223
1899, Botanical Magazine of Tokyo, 13(154).