Wu Zhengyi

PROFILE OF WU ZHENGYI


Wu Zhengyi is a leading botanist in China.He is most prestigious for his study in plant taxonomy, floristic geography, and the study of medicinal plants. Prof. Wu was elected member (academician) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955, and is presently Professor and Director Emeritus of Kunming Institute of Botany, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is the editor-in-chief of Flora Respublicae Popularis Sinicae (in Chinese) and the co-chair of the Flora of China (English and updated edition). He has engaged himself in botanical research for over sixty years.
Wu Zhengyi was born in Jiujiang of SE China’s Jiangxi Province in 1916, grew up in Yangzhou of Jiangsu Province, and received higher education and earned his B. S. at the National Tsinghua Univeristy in 1937, majored in biology. He became a graduate student of Prof. Zhang Jingyue in 1940-1942 and from then he started his botanical research. He was a lecturer in National Tsinghua University in 1946 to 1949. In 1950, Wu Zhengyi became a professional research botanist and a deputy director of the Institute of Botany, the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He was appointed director of the Kunming Institute of Botany at Kunming, capital of China’s biodiversity-richest Province of Yunnan in 1958 and has been working there ever since.
Prof. Wu’s botanical career is seen as the epitome of the nationalization of modern botany in China and he gained worldwide influence. He is the major founder of the plant biogeography in China with over published 140 papers of all kinds. He was author or chief editor of dozens of books or serial publications. Important books edited by Prof. Wu, such as Flora of Respublicae Popularis Sinicae (Chinese edition) (in eighty volumes and 125 books), Vegetation of China, and Flora of China (English and updated edition) have not only made a complete inventory of Chinese plants and their communities for the first time, but also enhanced the influence and the reputation of Chinese botanical study in the world. Other publications edited by Prof. Wu, such as Flora Yunnanica (in twenty one volumes) and Vegetation of Yunnan, also collected very rich first-hand data for this famous Kingdom of Plants. Standing at the front of the demand of the country and the need of development of science, he put forward the steering guidelines for the integration of rational utilization of plant resources and biodiversity conservation, and brought forward foresighted and strategic proposals for conservation of plant diversity. Prof. Wu also used an analytical and explicit approach in his study of plant floristic geography in China; brought forward the theory that the formation of the useful components of plants were related with the formation history of the distribution of the plant species. In short, Prof. Wu has made unparallel contributions to bridging the gaps of modern botany in China and to bringing Chinese botany into the world, and done outstanding basic, foresighted, and strategic work at the effective conservation of plant diversity and rational utilization of plant resources in China.