Hirase_Sakugorō
Hirase Sakugorō (平瀬作五郎, February 12, 1856 – January 4, 1925) was a Japanese botanist and painter. Born into a samurai family in Fukui, Hirase discovered the spermatozoids of the ginkgo in January 1894, before Seiichiro Ikeno discovered the spermatozoids of the cycad.[1] He is a laureate of the Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy (1912).