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Hostas have been
cultivated in
China,
Korea and Japan for centuries, used
in shrines and around private homes. |
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Englebert Kaempfer
(1651-1716), a German doctor/botanist with the
Dutch East India Company, was the first Westerner
to see, draw, and describe a hosta while working
in Japan. |
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Carl
Peter
Thunberg (1743-1828), a Swedish doctor/botanist
with the Dutch East India Company, collected 900
plants from
Japan, and renamed hostas, placing
them in the genus Hemerocallis. Two
species of hostas,
H. plantaginea and
H. ventricosa arrived in Europe from
China
in 1790. |
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Kurt
Sprengel, in 1817, placed hostas in the
genus Funkia in honor of a
collector/botanist, named after Heinrich
Christian Funck (1771–1839), Prussian
botanist. |
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In 1830,
Hosta sieboldiana (now H. 'Sieboldiana')
was sent to
England from
a botanic garden in Germany. |
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Robert
Fortune (1813-1880), a Scottish botanist working
for the Royal Horticultural Society and later for
the East India Company, collected plants from
China
and
Japan, including
H.
'Fortunei'. |
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Thomas Hogg
(1819-1892), an American working for the U.S.
government in
Japan, sent plants to his nursery in
the New York City area of the United States. |
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Botanists
continued working on the classification of hosta
species. These included a Swedish
taxonomist,
Dr. Nils Hylander, and a Dutch
taxonomist, Dr. Karel Hensen. In the 1930's, an
American taxonomist,
Liberty
Hyde Bailey and a
Professor in
England, W. Stearn, also
divided hostas by species. |
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Dr Fumio Maekawa, a
Japanese botanist, published his classification of
hostas called 'The Genus Hosta' at Tokyo
University in 1940, which became widely accepted
by Western botanists. |
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Mrs. Frances
Williams, from Massachusetts, began collecting
hostas from around the world for her garden. She kept accurate notes and passed on many
varieties since the 1930's. She bought a
yellow edge hosta which she found growing at
Bristol Nurseries, Connecticut, which she
grew and distributed to fellow gardeners. It
was later named Hosta 'Frances Williams'
and became the most popular hosta ever raised.
Interest in hostas was evident by landscape
designers in the 1950's and 1960's. |
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In 1968, The American Hosta Society was founded by
Alex
Summers, its first president. Today the Society
has about 3,000 members in States from coast to
coast. |
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In the 1970's, the
Tardiana hybrids were distributed throughout the
United States. Also in the 1970's,
Paul Aden, the
world's most prolific hosta hybridizer, began
introducing many new cultivars. He also authored
The Hosta Book,
published in 1988. |
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In 1987, Brian
Matthew placed Hosta in a family of its
own,
Hostaceae. Today, the Hosta
family includes about 43 different
species, two coming
from China and the rest from
Korea and
Japan.
There are well over 1,000 cultivars grown,
with a great diversity in size, shape, texture and
color. |
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In 1991, a massive
reference work about hostas by
W. George Schmid
was published,
The Genus Hosta. |
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2000 - Mark R. Zilis published
The Hosta
Handbook which included information on over
1,500 hosta species and cultivars.
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2009 - Mark R. Zilis published
The Hostapedia which included information on over
7,000 hosta species and cultivars.
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