This docufiction novel is inspired by the compelling, true-life story of a now little-known young botanist in prewar Taiwan who invests his expertise and energies on expanding our understanding of the plant sciences.

It was only in the 1930s that Taiwan’s colonial education system, and its modern approach to scientific studies, produced the island’s first crop of skilled and motivated botanical researchers. Between his 1932 graduation from Taihoku Imperial University in Taipei and his permanent relocation to Japan in 1946, Hosokawa Takahide (1909-1981) forged a fruitful career as a Taiwan-based botanist, leaving over 6,000 botanical specimens that are still conserved today in the National Taiwan University (NTU) Herbarium. However, despite his contemporary importance, he and his legacy have largely faded into obscurity. In Archived Shadows, author and botanist Hu Jer-Ming explores the scientific, historical, and sociological underpinnings of Hosokawa’s work and specimen collection, weaving a compelling story of Imperial Japanese botany in the early-mid twentieth century.

After introducing Hosokawa’s personal background, the story-like narrative follows the budding botanist through his friendships and studies while at Taihoku Imperial University as well as his subsequent research expeditions through Southeast Asia and atolls in the Western Pacific. Readers follow Hosokawa on his journeys to learn about iconic and interesting regional flora and discover the importance to native cultures of elephant-ear taro leaves, kava root, and many other plants. Archived Shadows brings stale scientific knowledge to life and a new, eye-opening familiarity to exotic plants.

The story woven here by widely read author Hu Jer-Ming is a botanical adventure in time that invites readers to see through Hosokawa’s eyes tropical Pacific islands decades before the arrival of package tourism and modernity and to appreciate the moxie of field botanists willing to risk life and limb to sate scientific curiosity.