Biography

Japanese professor of botany at Ochanomiza University. Tuyama was born at Hiroshima and went on to study botany at Tokyo University, where he developed a specialism in the flora of Micronesia and the Bonin Islands. He was appointed as an assistant at the Botanical Institute of the university in 1939 and from 1941 served as a member of the Research Institute for Natural Resources. He earned his DSc in 1942 and in 1950 moved to Ochanomiza University as an Assistant Professor (he became Professor in 1952 and was later Emeritus). Tuyama conducted several expeditions to Pacific islands and various parts of Asia. In 1943 he collected in West New Guinea, mainly in the lowlands. Visiting Thailand in 1957-1958 he amassed many specimens, and two years later he joined an expedition to the Himalayas, returning in 1963, both times with a party of researchers led by Hiroshi Hara. An expert on camellias, he published Camellias of Japan in 1971 and in 1979 led an expedition to Yunnan Province in China in search of the flowers.

Sources:
2001, "Obituary: Takasi Tuyama" (in Japanese), Journal of Japanese Botany, 76(1): 56-58
M.J. van Steenis Kruseman, "Cyclopedia of Collectors", Flora Malesiana, online edn:
http://www.nationaalherbarium.nl/FMCollectors/T/TuyamaT.htm, accessed 14 October 2010.