AWARDEE OF LIFE SCIENCES PRIZE

WANG WENCAI

Abstract

Prof.Wang Wencai,a phytotaxonomist,was born in June 1923 in Jinan,Shandong Province.He graduated from the Department of Biology,Beijing Normal University in 1949,and then was appointed assistant of that Department.From March 1950 up to now,he works in the Institute of Botany,Chinese Academy of Sciences.In 1993,he was elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
From 1950 up to now Prof.Wang has worked on the taxonomy of four families of the flowering plants,i.e.Ranunculaceae,Urticaceae,Boraginaceae,and Gesneriaceas.As a result of his research,20 new genera and some 550 new species were discovered by him,and according to the evolutionary tendencies revealed by him the systems of classification of the genera Delphinium,Thalictrum,Adonis,and Clematis(Ranunculaceae),Elatostema and Boehmeria(Urticaceae),Petrocosmea and Chirita (Gesneriaceae) were significantly revised,and those of the genera Pellionia (Urticaceae),Microula (Boraginaceae),Opithandra and Lysionotus(Gesneriaceae) were established for the first time by him.
On the basis of the analyses of the geographical distribution of the plants of the Ranunculaceae,Urticaceae,Boraginaceae,Gesneriaceae,and other 92 families,7 distribution patterns within the eastern Asiatic region were discerned,and 3 migration routes initiated from Southwest China and extending from there northestward to Siberia,eastward to Japan,and westward to the Himalayas were distinguished respectively by him,and basing on the great diversity of the flora of Southwest China and the radiant extension of the various migration routes from there,he put forth a speculaion that the Yunnan Guizhou Plateau plus Sichuan Province might be an important center of development of the flowering plants in the Northern Hemisphere once by the Middle Cretaceous formed after the archaic flowering plants had reached that plateau from the equatorial regions.
Prof.Wang has edited seven volumes of the Iconographia Cormophytorum Sinicorum(1972～1982),three volumes and two parts of the Flora Republicae Popularis Sinicae,i.e.vols.27and28(Ranunculaceae)(1979～1980),vol.23(2)(Urticaceae)(1995),vol.64(2) (Boraginaceae)(1998),and vol.69(Gesneriaceae etc.)(1990),and two local floras,i.e. Vascular Plants of the Hengduan Mountains (1993～1994),and Keys to the Vascular Plants of the Wuling Mountains(1995).