Special Report: Status of the Flora of China

It is well known that China is very rich in plant life, so the project, Flora of China, has attracted the attention of botanists all over the world. This article presents a brief report on the initiation, organization, compilation and publication of the Flora as well as some of the problems encountered in the process of its compilation. We would greatly appreciate suggestions and assistance from our colleagues of different countries in this undertaking. According to the preliminary estimates by the Chinese botanists, China has a diverse flora of approximately 30,000 species of plants including ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms. The Flora of China will be comprised of 80 volumes, but since some volumes will be published in two separate parts, the total number of bound volumes will be 120. Owing to our current conditions and an inadequate number of trained botanists, the completion of such a monumental task is not easy. It should be noted that due to the historical background of China, there are some complicated factors involved in the compilation of the Flora. It is known to all that in the period from 1750 to approximately 1950, when China was in the feudal, semi-feudal and semi-colonial society, there were missionaries, soldiers, adventurers and even professional plant collectors from Western countries who came to China and collected a large quantity of plant specimens which were subsequently housed in their own herbaria. After being studied by the Western botanists, many new taxa of Chinese plants were published in American, British, French, German, Italian, Russian and Japanese journals. Thus the scientific information is widely scattered and more significantly, a large number of type specimens of Chinese plants are preserved in diverse herbaria. Consequently, difficulties have occurred for Chinese botanists in their work on identification and description. While there is currently an extensive effort being expended in the task of producing the Flora of China, we can proceed in the compilation of the project only by reviewing and assessing the work done by earlier foreign scholars. After liberation of this country, under the auspices of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, botanical institutions have been founded in Peking, Nanking, Canton, Keiling, Wuhan, Lushan, Chengtu, Kunming, Wuking, Shenyang, Sining and Urumchi. Research activities of phytotaxonomy, morphology, ecology, physiology, plant introduction and acclimatization, etc., are in progress in these institutions.