Volume 48 Number 2 Spring 1988

Arnoldia (ISSN 0004-2633; USPS 866-100) is pub-lished quarterly, in winter, spring, summer, and fall,by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.

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Arnoldia is printed by the Office of the UniversityPublisher, Harvard University.

Front cover:-Painting of Aquilaria sinensis (Loureiro)Gilg, a rare Chinese shrub. (See pages 2 through 8.)~.Inside front cover:-Portrait of Chen Huanyong( 1890-1971 as a young man. From The Index, the juniorannual of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, for1913. Used through the courtesy of the Archives of theUniversity of Massachusetts at Amherst. (See page 9.) J~This page:-The Chinese characters for the nameChen Huanyong. Courtesy of Sidney L. Tai, Harvard-Yenching Library. (See page 9.) ~o.lnside back cover :-"Nine Dragon Pine," a famous lacebark pine (Pinusbungeana) of the Chieh Tai Ssu Temple in the WesternHills, located forty miles west of Beijing. Said to havebeen planted nine hundred years ago, the tree is calledthe "Nine Dragon Pine" in reference to its nine mamtrunks. (Seepage 32.) / ~ Back cover:-Various structuresof Pinus bungeana, the lacebark pine ( 1: section of a leaf;2, stamen; 3 and 4, female bract with scale; 5, cone; 6 and7, female bract with scale, in fruiting stage; 8, seed).From Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, 1909. (See page 32./ J

Page2 The Vulnerable and Endangered Plants of

Xishuangbanna Prefecture, YunnanProvince, ChinaZou Shou-qing

9 Transplanting Botany to China: The Cross-Cultural Experience of Chen HuanyongWilliam J. Haas

26 Forestry in Fujuan Province, People’sRepublic of China, during the CulturalRevolutionRichard B. Primack

30 INTERVIEWChinese Botany and the Odyssey of Dr.Shiu-ying HuSally Aldrich Adams

32 Pinus bungeana Zuccarini-A Ghostly PineRobert G. Nicholson

39 BOOKS

The Vulnerable and Endangered Plants of Xishuang-banna Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China

Zou Shou-qingEfforts are now being taken to preserve endangered species in the rich tropicalflora of China’s "Kingdom of Plants and Animals"

Xishuangbanna Prefecture is a tropical area ofChina situated in southernmost YunnanProvince, on the border with Laos and Burma.Lying between 21°00’ and 21°30’ North Lati-tude and 99°55’ and 101°15’ East Longitude,the prefecture occupies 19,220 square kilo-meters of territory. It attracts Chinese andnon-Chinese botanists alike and is knownpopularly as the "Kingdom of Plants andAnimals." The Langchan River passesthrough its middle.

Xishuangbanna is very hilly, about 95 per-cent of its terrain being hills and low, undu-lating mountains that reach 500 to 1,500meters in elevation. The highest peak is 2,400meters in elevation. High mountains in thenorth, including the Wuliang and AilaoMountains, block the cold air from the northand trap warm, humid air from the IndianOcean, creating a hot, humid, windless tropi-cal climate. The mean annual temperature is18 C to 22 C, and, depending upon elevationand topography, 1,000 millimeters to 2,200millimeters of precipitation fall annually; asa result, tropical forest and other tropicalvegetation flourish on hillsides and in val-leys. A great diversity of vegetation types-including tropical rain forest, seasonal rainforest, montane rain forest, and evergreen

Cycas pectinata Griffith, a rare and vulnerable species.It is a spectacular ornamental plant, and its fruit andstem are used in medicine by the Dai minority of China.Photographs by the author.

broadleaf forest-occurs in Xishuangbanna.Coniferous forest develops above 1,200 me-ters. In addition, Xishuangbanna lies at thetransitional zone between the floras of Ma-laya, Indo-Himalaya, and South China andtherefore boasts a great number of plant spe-cies. So far, about 4,000 species of vascularplants have been identified. This means thatXishuangbanna, an area occupying only 0.22percent of China, supports about 12 percentof the species in China’s flora. The species be-long to 1,471 genera in 264 families and in-clude 262 species of ferns in 94 genera and 47families, 25 species of gymnosperms in 12genera and 9 families, and 3,700 species ofangiosperms in 1,365 genera and 208 families.The tropical features of Xishuangbanna’s

flora are quite distinct. Such tropical familiesas the Dipterocarpaceae, Myristicaceae,Tetramelaceae, Anonaceae, and Dilleni-aceae, and such genera as Ficus, Artocarpus,Antiaris, Dysoxylum, and Aphanamixis arerepresented. About 60 percent of the speciesin Xishuangbanna’s flora also occur in Viet-nam, Laos, Burma, and India. During the pasttwo centuries, many species from the Indo-chinese peninsula and other tropical regionshave been successfully introduced into

Xishuangbanna. Among them have beenCassia siamea, Mesua ferrea, Crinum asi-aticum, Cananga odorata, and Bixa orellana.

There are many endemic species in

Xishuangbanna’s flora, such as Manglietiawangii, Polyalthia cheliensis, Phc~bepuwen-

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sis, and Horsfieldia tetratepala; a number ofrelict species, such as Cycas pectinata, Podo-carpus wallichii, Magnolia henryi, and Slad-enia celastrifolia; and many rare species,such as Manglietia fordiana, Michelia hed-yosperma, Paramichelia baillonii, and Pseu-duvaria indochinensis. According to datacollected by Li Yanhui, 153 endemic species,31 relict species, and 133 rare species grow inXishuangbanna; of them, 110 are endangeredor vulnerable (see the list on pages 6 and 7).

Twenty-eight wild types of cultivatedplant species and their relatives occur inXishuangbanna’s flora, among them Oryzaminuta, Camellia sinensis var. assamica,Coix lacryma-jobi, Citrus grandis, andMomordica subangulata. Some may prove tohave significant value in genetic research andbreeding.

More than 1,000 species in Xishuang-banna’s flora are economically important.About 500 of them are medicinal plants thatare used locally or in traditional Chinesemedicine; among these are Amomum villos-um, Taraktogenos merrillana, Cissampelosparaira var. hirsuta, and Homalomenaocculta. Rauvolfia yunnanensis has becomean important source of reserpine, and May-tenus hookeri is alleged to have anti-cancerproperties.More than 100 species of tree in Xishuang-

banna’s flora grow fast or produce high-qual-ity timbers, the best example being Dal-bergia fusca var. enneandra, which haspurple-black heartwood. Its wood is veryhard, heavy, and tough and so is used as asubstitute for rosewood. The fast-growingspecies Anthocephalus chinensis is anotherexample. It is the most productive timber treein tropical tree plantations. Toona ciliata,Paramichelia baillonii, Gmelina arborea,Altingia excelsa, Chukrassia tabularia var.velutina, and Dysoxylum binecea?folium areall valuable hardwood timber trees that areused in industry and construction.

Xishuangbanna’s flora contains more than100 oil-bearing species. Horsfieldia tetra-

tepala, Jatropha cureas, Hodgsonia macro-

carpa, Ostodes katharinx, and Pyrulariaedulis, for example, are important sources offood oil or industrial oil. Ten species-Cala-mus flagellum, Calamus palustris, Calamusnambariensis, etc.-yield rattan. Many spe-cies are aromatic, tanning, or resin and gumplants, among them Elsholtzia blanda, Cin-namomum mollifolium, Phyllanthus em-blica, and Sterculia villosa.

During the past 20 years, many forests inXishuangbanna were ruined. More than13,000 hectares of forest were cut each year asa result of shifting cultivation, conversion torubber plantations, and demands for timberand fuel by local people. Recently, the forestcover of Xishuangbanna has declined sharply,from about 60 percent to 33 percent. Manyhillsides that once were covered with rainforests are now grassland of cogongrass andlow shrub. Along with the destruction oftropical forests, obviously, many plant andanimal species have been threatened. It isestimated that one species is lost for every700 hectares of tropical forest ruined. If this isso, then more than 800 species of plant havebeen lost or are in danger of being lost. Ifremedial measures are not taken today, manyspecies with valuable properties will be lost.This would be a big mistake, one that ourdescendents would be unlikely to forgive.The first volume of the Plant Red Data

Book for China, recently issued by the Acade-mia Sinica (the Chinese Academy of Science),lists 389 endangered species of Chineseplants. The Book gives their morphologicalfeatures, distributions, and statuses and de-scribes methods for their conservation. Fifty-four of the species it lists are native to Xi-shuangbanna.The Chinese government devotes more

attention to nature conservation now than itonce did. For example, 310 nature reserves,with a total area of 167,000 square kilome-ters, have been established throughout thecountry, and the funding of nature-conserva-tion programs has been increased. In Xi-

shuangbanna Prefecture, some 600,000 hec-tares of tropical forest survive. To protect re-

maining ecosystems and species, 200,000hectares of land (about one tenth theprefecture’s area) have been set aside as re-serves, including the Mengyang, Mengla,Menglun, Menghai, and Dashujiao reserves,and a team of 150 forest guards has beenorganized. The guards patrol forests, prevent

forest fires, stop hunting and timberingwithin nature reserves, and deal with crimi-nal cases of vandalism.The Yunnan Institute of Tropical Botany,

Academia Sinica-formerly the BotanicalGarden of Xishuangbanna-is located in theprefecture. It is has become an active center

Caryota urens Linnxus, the wine (or sago) palm, is an endangered speciesin China. The Dai minority use the tasty starch in the middle of the trunkfor food.

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for the study and conservation of tropicalplants. More than 2,500 local and otherwisetropical plant species, including dozens ofendangered species, have been introducedand cultivated there.

Xishuangbanna is a treasure house of natu-ral resources. Its flora, one of the richest in

China or for that matter in the world, con-tains many rare, endemic, and economicallyvaluable species. A veritable treasury for ourwell-being, it has suffered seriously in thepast. We must now work hard to preventfurther losses to it.

Vulnerable and endangered members of Xishuangbanna’s flora

(The symbols indicate that a species is vulnerable ( * ) or endangered (~); species listed as endangered in thePlant Red Data Book for China are printed in boldface type.

Relict species* Alsophila spinulosa (Wallich ex Hooker)Tryon

* Cycas pectinata Griffith* Anchangiopteris henryi Christ & Giesenhagen* Cycas siamensis Miquel* Podocarpus imbricata Blume~Podocarpus wallichii Presl~Podocarpus fleuryi Hickel* Podocarpus nerrifolia Wight~Cephalotaxus oliveri MastersMagnolia henryi Dunn

* Sladenia celastrifolia Kurz* Cenocentrum tonkinense Gagnepain~Borthwickia trifoliata W. W. Smith* Silvianthus bracteata Hooker fils* Pittosporopsis kerrii Craib* Cephalostigma hookeri C. B. Clarke* Campanumcea parviflora /Wallich) Bentham~Zippelia begonixfolia Blume

Endemic species* Manglietia wangii Hu* Manglietia microgyna Liou~Magnolia delavayi Franchet var. albivillosaLiou

~Cyathocalyx yunnanensis Y. H. Li & P. T. Li

~Cyathostemrna yunnanensis Hu* Desmos yunnanensis (Hu) P. T. Li~Coniothalamus chinensis Hu~Cinnamomum austroyunnanensis H. W. Li

* Cinnamomum mollifolium H. W. LiLitsea dilleni~folia P. Y. Bai 8z. P. H. Huang

~Neolitsea menglaensis Yang & P. H. Huang* Horsfieldia pandurifolia Hui~Horsfieldia tetratepala C. Y. Wu* Myristica yunnanensis Y. H. Li~Anemone filisecta Wu & Wang~Capparis fohaiensis B. S. Sun~Xanthophyllum yunnanensis C. Y. Wu* Heliciopsis lobata (Merrill) Slaum var. micro-carpa C. Y. Wu & T. Z. HsuHeliciopsis terminalis (Kurz) SleumerHomalium laoticum Gagn. var. glabretum C.Y. Wu

* Parashorea chinensis Wang Hsie~Pellacalyx yunnanensis Hu~Camellia taheishangensis F. S. Zhang~Garcinia lancilimba C. Y. Wu ex Y. H. Li~Garcinia xishuangbannaensis Y. H. Li~Ochrocarpus yunnanensis H. L. Li~Grewia falcata C. Y. Wu~Sloanea cheliensis Hu~Pterospermum yunnanensis Hsue~1’terospermum mengluensis Hsue e* Ostodes kuangii Y. T. Chang* Sauropus coriaceus C. Y. Wu* Lithocarpus yiwuensis Huang & Y. T. Chang* Maytenus diversicymosa S. J. Pei & Y. H. Li* Maytenus pseudoracemosa S. J. Pei & Y. H. Li

~Maytenus inflata S. J. Pei & Y. H. Li

~Maytenus pachycarpa S. J. Pei & Y. H. Li

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~Protium yunnanensis (Hu) Kalkm.* Amoora calcicola C. Y. Wu & H. Li* Walsura yunnanensis C. Y. Wu’~Buchanania yunnanensis C. Y. Wu* Mastixia caudatilimba C. Y. Wu

~Nyssa sinensis Oliv. var. oblongifolia Fang 8tSoongNyssa yunnanensis W. C. Yin

~Diospyzos atrotricha H. W. Li~Marsdenia incisa P. T. Li & Y. H. Li* Kopsia of ficinalis Tsiang & P. T. Li* Radermachera microcolyx C. Y. Wu & W. C.Yin

~Callicarpa yunnanensis W. Z. Fang* Salvia fragarioides C. Y. Wu* Arisxma austroyunnanensis H. Li* Achasma yunnanensis T. L. Wu 8t Senjen

Rare species* Manglietia fordiana Oliver~Michelia hedyosperma Law~Mitrephora wangii Hu* Litsea magnolifolia Yang & P. H. HuangLitsea pierrei Lecomte var. szemaois Liou

* Machilus rufipes H. W. Li~Knema cinerea Warburg var. glauca Y. H. Li~Horsfieldia kingii (Hooker fils) WarburgFleutharrhane macrocarpa (Diels) Formanek

~Piper pubicatulum C. de Candolle~Argemone mexicana Linnaeus~Lagerstr~mia intermedia Koehne’~Crypteronia paniculata Blume e~Cochlospezmum vitifolium Sprengel* Aquilaria sinensis (Loureiro) Gilg~Zanonia indica LinnaeusTetrameles nudiflora R. BrownTerminalia myriocarpa Heurck & Muller

ArgoviensisAnogeissus acuminata (Roxburgh ex de Can.dolle) Guillaumin var. lanceolata Wallich exClarke

~Quisqualis caudata Craib~Combreturn olivxfozme Chao

Carallia lancxfolia Roxburgh* Calophyllum polyanthum Wallich ex ChoisyMesua nagassarium (Burman fils) Kostermans

~Colona sinica Hu~Sloanea tomentosa (Bentham) Rehder &Wilson

~Ptezygota alata (Roxburgh) R. Brown* Vatica xishuangbannaensis G. D. Tao 8t J. H.Zhang

~Pterospermum acerifolium Willdenow* Bombax insignis Wallich

* Hibiscus austroyunnanensis C. Y. Wu & K. M.Feng

* Erythroxylum kunthianum (Wallich) KurzIxonanthes cochinchinensis Pierre

~Chxtocarpus castanocarpus ThwaitesDalbergia fusca Pierre

Whitfordiodendron filipes (S. T. Dunn) S. T.Dunn

~Distilopsis yunnanensis (H. T. Chang) C. Y.Wu

* Cyclobalanopsis rex (Hemsley) Schott* Trigonobalanus doichangensis (A. Camus)Formanek

* Celtis wightii Planchon* Antiaris toxicaria (Persoon) LeschenaultArtocarpus lakocha RoxburghLaportea urentissima GagnepainPoikilospermum suaveolens (Blume) Merrill

* Maytenus hookeri Loesener* Garuga pierrei GuillauminToona ciliata Roemer

* Toona microcarpa (de Candolle) HarmsXerospermum bonii (Lecomte) RadlkoferPometia tomentosa (Blume) Teysmann & Bin-

nendijk~Nyctocalos shanica MacGregor & W. W.SmithGmelina arborea Roxburgh

* Homalomena gigantea Engler* Tacca chantrieri Andr~* Caryota urens Linnaeus

Wild types of cultivated plantsOryza meyeriana (Zollinger 8~ Moritz) Baillonvar. granulata TataokaOryza minuta J. PreslCamellia sinensis (Linnaeus) O. Kuntze var.assamica (Masters) KitamuraLitchi chinensis SonneratCitrus grandis OsbeckMangifera sylvatica Roxburgh

~Cucumis hystrix Chakrav.Panax zingiberensis C. Y. Wu & Feng ex C.ChowHovenia acerba Lindley var. kiukiangensis(Cheng & Hu) C. Y. Yu

Zou Shou-qing, a research associate at the Yunnan Insti-tute of Tropical Botany, Academia Sinica, was exchangevisiting scholar at the Arnold Arboretum of HarvardUniversity in 1986. He received a B. A. degree in forestryin 1965 from the Nanjing Institute of Forestry.

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More about the front cover

The illustration on the front cover of this issue of Amoldia is part of a painting donein China nearly a century and a half ago by a Chinese artist working for theAmerican merchant, Warren Delano (1809-1898), of Boston. Given in 1930 to theArnold Arboretum by Delano’s son, Frederic Adrian Delano, the painting is one ofmore than six hundred that the elder Delano commissioned during his two decadesor more of residence in China. It depicts a rare Chinese shrub, Aquilaria sinensis(Loureiro) Gilg. The first excerpt printed below describes the paintings and givesdetails about Delano’s gift to the Arboretum. The collection is far from unique,however, as the second excerpt attests.

Mr Frederic A. Delano has presented to theLibrary the most unique gift of recent years, toserve as a memorial to his father Warren Delano,1809-1898, with the purpose of making it "of realvalue to students." "

It consists of six hundred and eleven paintings ofChinese fruits, flowers and vegetables, naturalsize, beautifully executed by native artists onsheets 15" x 19". Some of them are well-knownplants that have been introduced into this countrysuch as the Rose, Peony, Chrysanthemum,Camellia, etc., but many of them are very rare. Inhis presentation letter Mr. Delano writes, "Myfather, Warren Delano, was one of the early Bos-ton merchants engaged in the China trade-andwent there in 1835. He lived in China for morethan 20 years, between 1835 and 1866, chiefly inCanton, Macao and Hong Kong connected withthe house of Russell & Co. During his stay heendeavored to learn about the products of thecountry and in the 40’s he collected and had drawnby Chinese artists over 500 paintings of the 200 ormore fruits, flowers and vegetables."These paintings are replete with interest, bo-

tanical, artistic, and historical. They were appar-ently done by various artists with varying degreesof skill over a period of years. The paper on whichthey were painted is evidently of English manufac-ture, the earliest water-marks being "I. Taylor1794" and "E. & P. 1794", and the latest "Ruse &Turners 1832." Between these are various otherdates, many of which bear the name of J. What-man, and in 1828, "J. Whatman, Turkey Mill"with design resembling a coat-of-arms.The paintings are exquisitely drawn, in beauti-

ful colors marvelously preserved, with details of

fruit and flower, some bearing both on the sameplant. Occasionally two plants are figured on thesame sheet.

-Journal of the Arnold Arbore-tum, Volume 11, Number 2(April 1930), pages 131 and132.

The Hort[iculturalJ. Soc[ietyJ. of London is in-debted to J[ohn] Reeves for a fine collection ofcoloured drawings of Chinese plants, executed inhis own house under his superintendence by Chi-nese draughtsmen. Such drawings first brought usto a knowledge of the Chinese Prime rose..., Den-drobium nobile, many of the finest Camellias,Chrysanthemums, Azaleas, Moutans, and aboveall of the Glycine (Wistaria) chinensis, whichplants were subsequently introduced into Englishgardens. In this way was formed that collection ofauthentic drawings of Chinese plants, by far themost extensive in Europe, which now forms part ofthe library of the Horticular Society.A similar collection is now in the British Mu-

seum. Mr. Carruthers, Report Bot. Dep. Brit. Mus.for 1877, states that 654 Chinese drawings ofplants, executed under the superintendence of thelate John Reeves, were presented by Miss Reeves(his daughter or perhaps grand daughter).

-History of European BotanicalDiscoveries in China, by EmilBretschneider, Volume 1,pages 25 7 and 258.

Transplanting Botany to China: The Cross-CulturalExperience of Chen Huanyong

William j. Haas

After studying at the Arnold Arboretum, a Chinese student returnsto his homeland, becoming a leader in botanical work

Chen Huanyong (Woon-Young Chun/1 cameto Boston in the autumn of 1915 to study atthe Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University’smuseum of living trees. The arboretum, lo-cated on a 265-acre site in Jamaica Plain,Massachusetts, about five miles from thecenter of Boston, was set up in 1872 withfunding from the trust created by the legacyof New Bedford merchant James Arnold. Acondition of the gift was that the university"establish and support an Arboretum ... *which shall contain as far as is practicable, allthe trees ... either indigenous or exotic,which can be raised in the open air...."ZTrees from Asia were heavily represented atthe arboretum, and trees of Chinese originthrived there. The new Chinese studentflourished at the arboretum also. Freshlygraduated from the New York State School ofForestry at Syracuse University, Chen hadalready spent five years in the United Statessince leaving his native Shanghai. Now hewould spend four more years in the UnitedStates, doing graduate work among the treesat the arboretum.By the time Chen arrived in 1915, Charles

Sprague Sargent (1841-1927), director of thearboretum from 1873 until his death, had es-tablished the Arnold Arboretum as a centerfor the study of Chinese trees. Sargent’s in-terest in East Asian species was inspired byAsa Gray’s observation that the floras of east-

ern Asia and northeastern North Americawere closely related. This significantly im-plied that the species of one region mightgrow well in the other. While Gray’s workprovided theoretical underpinning forSargent’s horticultural interest in East Asia,it was the flourishing of seeds sent to Sargentby Emil Bretschneider (1833-1901), a Russianphysician in Beijing, which gave Sargent thepractical demonstration that plants collectedin China would be viable in America.3Sargent began slowly to collect Chinese

species; he acquired specimens through Euro-pean institutions and through a trip of hisown to China. In 1907 he hired Ernest H.Wilson (1876-1930) from the British horti-cultural firm Veitch & Sons, to collect for thearboretum in western China. These fabulouscollections from western China made himand the arboretum world-famous. Later,Sargent obtained the services of the collectorand ethnologist Joseph F. C. Rock (1884--1962).4 The arboretum’s collections of plantsfrom China increased rapidly.5 But it was notjust acquisition of Chinese collections thatmade the arboretum an important center.The study of these collections, especially byAlfred Rehder (1863-1949), assistant at andlater curator of the arboretum’s herbarium,also contributed to knowledge of the flora ofChina.Just as Americans had to travel to European

10

herbaria to study American plants, Chinesehad to come to American and European insti-tutions to study Chinese plants. Unless theyused the research collections in Western

herbaria, Chinese botanists would have hadto begin work on the flora of their countryfrom scratch. The arboretum had the strong-est collections of Chinese trees in the world.Chen came to Harvard specifically to use thatmaterial, explaining that "it would take me alifetime of travel to study what I can find outhere about Chinese trees in a few years."6

Education in the United States, 1909-1919It was Marion Case of Weston, Massachu-setts, who first alerted Chen to the impor-tance of the Arnold Arboretum. In 1909,Case, daughter of a Providence, Rhode Island,merchant, used land she had inherited tostart a small institution in Weston for experi-mentation in farming and education. Knownas Hillcrest Gardens, it is now the Case Es-tates of the Arnold Arboretum. Chen hadcome from Shanghai to the United States in1909 and enrolled in courses in forestry andentomology at the Massachusetts Agricul-tural College in Amherst. In 1910, Case hiredhim as her summer assistant. For five sum-mers between 1910 and 1919, Chen helpedCase manage and teach the young boys em-ployed at Hillcrest. The boys liked Chenbecause, in her view, the "quiet courteousways he had inherited from his Spanishmother appealed to them."7Chen’s success in the Hillcrest job may

have been as much due to his father’s influ-ence as to his mother’s. Chen’s parents proba-bly met while his father was in Cuba as adiplomatic representative of the Qing court.The couple had fourteen children; Chen, thethirteenth, was born in Hong Kong in 1890.Some time later, the family moved to Shang-hai, where Chen’s father taught English at theThomas Hanbury School, a boys’ schoolnamed after the British businessman whofinanced it. Chen’s summer work at Hillcrestwas similar to what his father did towards theend of his career.8

Arnold Arboretum botanists like John G.Jack (1896-1935), an assistant professor ofdendrology (the study of trees) made Hillcresta center for diffusing horticultural knowl-edge by giving lectures there during thesummer. It was probably on these occasionsthat Jack developed a friendship with hisfuture protege, Chen.9 The friendship musthave been heightened by mutual interest inChina’s flora; Jack had gone to China in 1905at his own expense to collect specimens forthe Arnold Arboretum. 10Chen’s commitment to forestry as a career

deepened after his first summer at Hillcrest.Chinese students with an ardent desire tostrengthen their country often claimed thatthe subject they studied was the one mostcrucial to China’s future. In the January 1911 1issue of the Chinese Students’ Monthly, theorgan of the Chinese Students’ Alliance,Chen explained why "Forestry in China" wasimportant. He vividly described the cancer ofdeforestation, a scourge which contributed toflood, famine, and unfavorable climate.China was once an Eden of luxuriant forestsand crystal streams, but indiscriminate re-moval of trees had laid bare entire provinces.Fertile topsoil had been washed from hill-sides and carried to the sea. Chen called foreducation as the antidote to "the poison ofpopular ignorance." Schools should be estab-lished to train men for a forest service. Usingthe advantages of Western science, a govern-ment bureau cooperating with the peoplecould succeed in reforestation. Chinese stu-dents should arouse national interest in amovement for reforestation.ll

It was an exciting time for Chinese stu-dents everywhere. In October 1911, the Xin-hai revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty;by 1912 there was a new Chinese republic.Chen’s ambition in forestry required morespecialized training. In 1912 he transferredfrom the Massachusetts Agricultural Collegeto the New York State School of Forestry atSyracuse University. The school had excel-lent facilities, including a forestry summercamp in the Catskill Mountains, which Chen

11 I

attended in 1914.12While completing his undergraduate train-

ing at Syracuse, Chen became active in theChinese Students’ Alliance, which had chap-ters throughout the United States. Chen wasa delegate to the alliance’s ninth annual con-ference, held at Cornell University in Ithacaduring the last week of August 1913. Dele-gates participated in vocational conferences,athletics, literary events, entertainments, abanquet, a picnic, and elections; Chen waselected to the Chinese Students’ Monthly’sEnglish Editorial Board. Delegates also dem-onstrated their concern with China’s interna-tional relations. There was anxiety in Chinabecause the "consortium," an internationalbanking syndicate, was forcing loans onChina and monopolizing its loan business. In1910, the consortium was a four-power affair,Britain, France, Germany, and the UnitedStates; in 1912, six-power: Japan and Russiawere added. At Ithaca, students’ alliancedelegates staged a mock parliament, a scaled-down version of the Chinese house of repre-sentatives in session. The main business wasan impeachment hearing for the premier be-cause he had concluded the "Five Powerloan."’3Over the next year Chen revealed growing

distress over the vagaries of cross-culturalexperience and contact. He wrote two shortstories on this theme for the Chinese Stu-dents’ Monthly. The fictional "East Is Eastand West Is West" was most likely autobio-graphical. A young Shanghai man embarkson a voyage to study in the United States,leaving behind his fiancee, Miss Mei, "beau-tiful, not in the striking beauty of the Ameri-can girl, but in that serene and saintly loveli-ness so characteristic of the girls of the East." "

Attending a small New England college, theyoung man adopts Western styles and habits.He meets a Chinese woman, a graduate ofWellesley College more suited to his newlyAmericanized tastes. He marries her and doesnot return to China. Back in China, MissMei’s faith and hope are crushed by the deser-tion. She goes to live in a nunnery, its silence

"unbroken save by the murmur of low-dron-ing prayers and the tinkles of temple bells."14In "Bitter Strength"-a translation of the

word coolie [kuli]-Chen used fiction to cryout against Westerners’ mistreatment of theChinese. A rickshaw coolie in the Britishcolony of Hong Kong spends a day striving toearn money for his family. By day’s end, theweakened coolie has obtained just theamount he needs to bring home to his agedmother. A British infantryman demands to betaken to the barracks where he is late for hisreturn. The coolie pleads exhaustion, but thehalf-drunk soldier tells him to "run like thedevil or have his head broken." On the way,the coolie’s muscles fail and he drops the cart.Cursing, the infantryman’s "right hand shotout, and the dirk sank deeply into the helplessbody." The coolie’s corpse is disposed of inthe waters off the bund.’sAfter graduating the forestry school at

Syracuse in 1915, Chen enrolled at Harvard’sBussey Institution for Research in AppliedBiology. Rather than become a forester, hewas going to become a dendrologist. TheArnold Arboretum did not officially offerinstruction, but students could arrange totake courses with John Jack and work at thearboretum by registering at the Bussey. Thatyear, another Chinese student, Qian Songshu(S. S. Chien, 1883-1965), also registered at theBussey to work with Jack. While studying atthe arboretum, Qian published in the NewEngland Botanical Club’s journal, Rhodora.For this publication, Chen later celebratedhim as "the first Chinese botanist to describenew species of plants."’6 The following year,Chen and Qian were joined at the arboretumby yet another Chinese student, Zhong Xin-xuan (H. H. Chung/." John Jack was good atteaching, and all his students adored him. Hewent out of his way to help them, oftenpaying their wages for work at the arboretumout of his own pocket or arranging Harvardloans for them. He arranged a loan for Chenat the beginning of 1916.Chen was more adventurous than most of

the dozen or so Chinese pursuing graduate

12

studies in various Harvard departments.Unlike his compatriots, who resided in

graduate dormitories or near school, Chenlived first on St. Botolph Street and later onGainsborough Street, in an "artsy" section ofBoston’s Back Bay-only a stone’s throwfrom the Massachusetts Horticultural Soci-ety, Symphony Hall, and the New EnglandConservatory of Music.’8 During his thirdyear in Boston, the Boston Globe interviewedthe cosmopolitan Chen, the student who hadcome "From China to Boston to Study Chi-nese Trees." Chen explained his work at the

arboretum and put it in a larger context;Chinese had been coming to America tostudy for twenty-five years. At present therewere 1,600 other Chinese studying in Amer-ica, most intending their studies to be ofdirect benefit to China.19During every semester of his four years at

Harvard, Chen registered for John Jack’s for-estry courses. His studies went well and inthe spring of his final year, 1919, he receivedone of Harvard’s Sheldon Travelling Fellow-ships to collect plants in southern China. Theday Chen graduated, Charles Sargent called

Professor Tohn G. Tack (at left) and three of his Chinese students examining a black maple (Acer saccharum var. nigrum).The student on the right has been identified as Chen Huanyong. Taken in the Arnold Arboretum during the summerof 1917. Photograph from the Archives of the Arnold Arboretum.

13

the talented student into his office and grufflyadvised him: "Chen, your botanical career isjust commencing." Sargent told him to gohome and familiarize himself with plants inthe field; unexplored Hainan Island would bebest. The Sheldon Fellowship would coverthe work for a year.2° Everything was set untilthe University bursar made an unusualdemand: part of Chen’s fellowship had to beturned over for immediate repayment of theHarvard loan that John Jack had arranged.Fortunately, the dean of the Bussey Institu-tion, entomologist William Morton Wheeler,interceded on Chen’s behalf. Wheeler wasconducting his own world-wide taxonomicstudy of ants (this later included ants ofChina) and recognized the value of havingChen collect Chinese plants for the arbore-tum.2’Since Sargent wished to expand his pro-

gram for acquiring Chinese specimens, hearranged to use Chinese students trained atthe arboretum as collectors after they re-turned to China. Chen Huanyong was thefirst to return to China in this role. The planwas for Chen to leave for China in September,do fieldwork there for a year and then returnto the States for a year to study and distributethe material he had collected. Sargent wantedChen to devote all his energy to collectingwoody plants and seeds, but Jack encouragedChen to broaden his scope to include herba-ceous plants and insects. The trip would befinanced by Chen’s fellowship, subscriptionsfor the collection of special material, and saleof specimens after Chen returned. John Jacktouted the quality of the specimens Chenwould make in an effort to get more financ-ing. He asked Professor B. L. Robinson topurchase material from Chen’s expedition forHarvard’s Gray Herbarium.22Located off the South China coast opposite

the province of Guangdong, Hainan Islandwas tropical and rough. Westerners had al-ready published memoirs of explorationsthere. The first to traverse the island was theReverend Benjamin Henry, a Presbyterianmissionary from western Pennsylvania who

became founding president of Canton Chris-tian College in 1893. Later renamed LingnanUniversity, the College was modeled on thePresbyterian-founded Protestant Syrian Col-lege, now known as the American Universityof Beirut. Henry visited Hainan in the 1880sand paid special attention to the aborigines;he found some young aborigine women"quite handsome in spite of the blue linestattooed over their faces."23With "the foolhardiness of young man-

hood" and a handbook for explorers, Chenwent to Hainan alone. Malaria was a con-stant threat, and after nine months with theaborigines, he was stricken. His feverreached 105 degrees, his body was coveredwith sores caused by leeches and malnutri-tion, and his left hand swelled "to the size andcolor of a boxing glove." He was carried out ofcentral Hainan’s Five Finger Mountains on astretcher.Chen recuperated in Nanjing and packed

his collections of plants, insects, and reptilesfor shipment to Boston. Disaster struck. Theshipment burned in a fire at the Shanghaiwarehouse of the China Merchants Steam-ship Navigation Company. At least Chenstill had the collections of Hainan material heretained in Nanjing. Some time later, a

commissioner of the Chinese maritime cus-toms offered Chen facilities for making col-lections in northwestern Hubei province. In1922, Chen, Qian Songshu, Qin Renchang(R. C. Ching), and "old Yao," a retired collec-tor who had assisted Augustine Henry, anIrish physician in the Imperial Chinese Cus-toms Service, went to Hubei province andcollected together. Chen and Qian’s herba-ceous specimens were sent to the Gray Her-barium ; Chen’s woody specimens, to theArnold Arboretum. Chen considered this tobe "partial atonement" for his "Hainan fail-ure."Za

The Nanjing Years, 1920-1927Chen began his teaching career in Nanjing in1920. During the first decades of twentieth-century China two separate educational sys-

14

tems were in place, one run by Chinese, theother run by Christian missionaries. At theelementary and secondary level, Chinese andforeign schools were seldom concerned witheach other, but at the college and universitylevel, there was competition for faculty andfunding. Competition was keenest in Beijing,Guangzhou, and Nanjing, cities having bothChinese and Christian universities. Chen’sfirst teaching position was at the Universityof Nanking, a Protestant mission schooladministered by American officers in Nan-jing and American trustees in New York City.The University inculcated its students withChristianity through required attendance atreligious classes and chapel. Chinese facultywere integrated into the Christian programby having to lead the weekly Bible study class.When it was Chen’s turn to preach, he chose"The Beauty of Forests and Poetry" for histopic. He enchanted the school’s teachers andstudents without saying a word about theBible. Chen’s sophisticated protest probablycoincided with protests from Chinese stu-dents against requirements for religious edu-cation. In any case, after Chen took his turn,weekly scholarly talks replaced the Bible-study class.25Chen was discontented at the University of

Nanking: "I am Chinese; I don’t like to workin a Christian school."26 Before long, heswitched over to the recently established andChinese-run National Southeastern Univer-sity, also in Nanjing. Its president, Guo Bing-wen (P. W. Kuo), the first Chinese to get aPh.D. from Columbia University’s TeachersCollege, recruited professors from the best ofthe "returned students."2’ Although South-eastern’s finances were shaky, its superb fac-ulty and Chinese administration made it

appealing to the most capable Chinese. Chenwas not the only Chinese to cross over fromthe University of Nanking to Southeastern.The loss of top-flight faculty caused the Uni-versity of Nanking administration to havehard feelings, feelings that were exacerbatedas competition for funding also developed.The sciences were strong at Southeastern,

especially biology. In 1922, this strength ledthe Science Society of China to establish itsbiological laboratory in Nanjing, staffedmainly with Southeastern University fac-ulty. Southeastern botany professor Hu Xian-su (H. H. Hu, 1894-1968) became head of thelaboratory’s botany division. Unlike Chen,Hu Xiansu had returned to China for sevenyears between finishing his undergraduatedegree at the University of California atBerkeley in 1916 and starting graduate train-ing at Harvard in 1923. When Hu returned toChina in 1916 he began teaching at the Nan-jing Higher Normal School, the predecessorinstitution of Southeastern University. Chenfelt that it was because of his influence thatHu decided to study at the Arnold Arbore-tum.’~Hu’s first direct contact with the arboretum

was through correspondence with CharlesSargent. Sending specimens was a standardway of contacting eminent botanists. In 1920,Hu sent Sargent a collection of woody speci-mens from Jiangxi province in exchange fortheir identification.29 Just as Chen had donewith the Hubei collections, he sent to the ar-boretum, Hu built up research collections atSoutheastern by attaching Sargent’s identifi-cations to an identically numbered duplicateset he retained in Nanjing.Hu enrolled at the Bussey Institution from

September 1923 to June 1925 and took fourforestry courses with John Jack.~° In the sameway he had helped Chen, Jack arranged auniversity loan for Hu. But Hu could notborrow as much money as Chen had becauseChen’s Harvard loan had not yet been repaid.An officer of the university criticized Jack forarranging Chen’s loan, intimating that Jackhad "backed up a ’crook’ for scholarships &other favors from the college." Jack told Chenthat his carelessness "handicaps & jeopard-izes my work in the University on behalf ofChinese students. You have made it harderfor them to get scholarships, loans, & c, espe-cially upon my recommendation when yourcase is remembered, as it is."3’Chastened byJack’s rebuke, Chen repaid half the loan

15

immediately.After he returned to Southeastern in 1925,

Hu received Jack’s explanation of this matter.While Jack criticized Chen, he did not com-ment on Harvard officials’ lumping of Chi-nese students together. Hu now understoodthat the university administration saw Chi-nese students at Harvard as a group. It sensi-tized him to the danger of negative Harvardattitudes towards Chinese based on stere-otypes. Hu raised the money to repay theother half of Chen’s loan, "in anxiety of his[Chen’s] error which may cast an ugly shadowupon the character of Chinese students atHarvard...."32Part of Chen’s problem repaying the Har-

vard loan was the disarray in Southeastern’sfinances; payment of faculty salaries wasoften in arrears, sometimes as much as eightmonths. Despite financial problems, Chenwas productive during his years in Nanjing.In 1922, he brought to press his manual, Chi-nese Economic Trees, a project he had startedat the Arnold Arboretum. The same year hewrote up a comparison of Chinese and Japa-nese pines for Kexue [Science], the journal ofthe Science Society of China. Before long hebegan a study of the genera and species of thelaurel family in China that would be pub-lished in the first volume of Contributionsfrom the Biological Laboratory of the ScienceSociety of China. By publishing the Contri-butions in English, Chinese biologists couldaddress the international scientific commu-nity from the pages of a publication of one oftheir own institutions. Further, through ex-change of the Contributions, the biologicallaboratory could build up its library withpublications from institutions throughoutthe world.At the end of 1923, disaster struck. The

science building housing the library and thenatural history collections at Southeasternburned down. Southeastern’s herbarium waslost; thousands of specimens painstakinglymounted on sheets of paper, labelled, andfiled had gone up in smoke. What had seem-ingly just started had now to be started all

Hu Xiansu (1894-1968), better known as H. H. Hu, astudent of John Jack’s from 1923 to 1925. Photographfrom the Archives of the Arnold Arboretum.

over again. Chen’s work could not but suffer.The University of Nanking mentioned thetragedy in criticisms of Southeastern botany.During the spring of 1924, Southeastern ar-ranged to receive a set of the National Geo-graphic Society collections made by Qin Ren-chang, a forestry student working his waythrough the University of Nanking as a teach-ing assistant at Southeastern University.University of Nanking botanist Albert Stew-ard attempted to win the set for his herbariumby undermining confidence in Southeastern.His method was to write Elmer Drew Merrill

16

(1876-1956), the preeminent American ex-pert on Chinese plants. Steward knew thatMerrill, through his connections in Washing-ton, could influence where the specimenswould go.Merrill had become a leading authority on

the flora of China during his years as directorof the Philippines Bureau of Science. Hisinfluence derived from promoting institu-tional ties, setting up herbaria-he did this forLingnan University and the University ofNanking-and identifying Chinese speci-mens in prodigious quantities with phe-nomenal speed. He determined approxi-mately 75,000 Chinese specimens from 1914to 1929. In 1924, Merrill became dean of theUniversity of California’s College of Agricul-ture at Berkeley, a position that increased hisinfluence.33When Steward wrote to Merrill in 1924,

there were more herbarium specimens ofChinese plants in Western institutions thanin institutions in China. Steward explainedthat it was "a source of regret as well as ofinconvenience to botanists working in Chinathat so many fine collections of Chineseplants have been taken completely out of thecountry." Steward used a progressive argu-ment for a parochial purpose. It had alreadybeen decided that the National Geographicspecimens would go to an herbarium inChina, Southeastern’s herbarium, but Stew-ard whittled away at Southeastern. It was

unsafe; their fire the past winter showed this.The plants that it had were not properlyarranged. "The men in charge of their workhave not shown ability, serious interest, or aspirit of cooperation along this line." Hesingled out Chen. The University of Nankinghad apparently contributed to the financingof Chen’s 1922 expedition to Hubei. Stewardclaimed that Chen owed him specimens andwas angry that Chen’s "god-father friend Pro-fessor Jack who was to have identified theHainan collection" received the woodyplants Chen collected in Hubei. Steward feltthat John Jack was the source of Arnold Arbo-retum pressure for Southeastern to be given

the specimens.34 He got nowhere with hiscomplaints. Merrill had his own relationshipwith Chen and was eager to work on Chen’sHainan materia1.35 Nanking’s bid for the setof National Geographic material failed.Botanical work at Southeastern picked up

in 1925. Qin Renchang began full-time workat Southeastern after he graduated the Uni-versity of Nanking, and Hu Xiansu returnedfrom Harvard. Hu, like Chen, won CharlesSargent’s confidence while he was at theArnold Arboretum. A fund for botanical ex-ploration in China was to be set up with Sar-gent and Marion Case as two of the trustees.Hu would oversee the work in Nanjing,Southeastern being the chief beneficiary. Hunaively mentioned this to John Reisner, deanof the University of Nanking’s College ofForestry and Agriculture.Reisner lobbied Merrill for help to make

Nanking the beneficiary instead. "No one inChina is more sympathetic with the aspira-tions of the Chinese than I am," Reisnerexplained as he denounced Hu Xiansu, "astrong pro-China individual" enthusiasticabout botanical work. Unfortunately, Hu’s"enthusiasm has never been able to lead topractical organization of their [Southeast-ern’s] herbarium work which would result ina usable file of herbarium material." Ofcourse, Reisner brought up the Southeasternfire. He admitted that there were also collec-tions at the science society’s biological labo-ratory, collections under the control of HuXiansu, "but they are in the same condition asbotanical plants in Chinese institutions al-ways are, unorganized and of no value toanybody in their present condition." Reisnerasked Merrill to recommend cooperationwith the University of Nanking to Sargent.36Hu found out about Reisner’s efforts to getSargent’s support and was outraged becauseReisner "always professes friendship andcooperation with us.... If this is Christianspirit, no wonder our young men now en-deavor to spread a national-wide anti-Chris-tianity propaganda."3’After Hu’s return to China in 1925, Hu and

17

Chen began a long and fruitful collaborationon their Icones Plantarum Sinicarum, illus-trations and descriptions of Chinese plants.The first of five large-format volumes-thedrawings were life-sized-came out in 1927.Chen and Hu dedicated it to Charles Sargent"through whose deep interest in ChineseBotany the knowledge of our ligneous florahas been greatly advanced." That same yearChen took a year’s leave from Southeastern toresearch the flora of South China. He had anappointment as professor at National SunYatsen University in Guangzhou, but hespent most of the winter and spring at theHong Kong Botanical Garden studying Chi-nese plants with Qin Renchang. Instead ofreturning to Southeastern at the end of hisleave, Chen stayed on at Sun Yatsen.38 Hualso left Nanjing; he was appointed head ofbotany at the new Fan Memorial Institute ofBiology in Beijing.

Institution Building in South China,1927-1937

Developments at Sun Yatsen were rapid. TheChina Foundation, the organization whichcontrolled the moneys from the UnitedStates’ remission of China’s Boxer War in-demnities, decided to support Chen’s work.In 1928, the foundation funded a new botanyinstitute at Sun Yatsen with Chen as head.The following year the foundation securedChen’s salary by making him a China Foun-dation Science Professor. Chen launched anambitious program of collecting in SouthChina while building up the institute’s li-

brary and herbarium through exchanges,especially with curator Alfred Rehder at theArnold Arboretum and Elmer D. Merrill atthe University of California. Merrill’s pri-mary interest was the flora of South China,and he and Chen established a close workingrelationship. Merrill respected Chen becauseof the high quality of his work, and com-plaints from Lingnan University did notchange his feelings.Merrill took the measure of a botanist by

the quality of his specimens and his field

notes. Until 1932, most of the Lingnan collec-tions sent to Merrill for identification camefrom Floyd McClure (1879-1970), a graduateof Ohio State University who came to Ling-nan in 1919. The material McClure sent wasoften sterile (it had, no fruits or flowers), notaccompanied by adequate notes and labels,and not ample enough for division; this wasimportant in case Merrill needed to send aportion of a specimen to a specialist for deter-mination. Merrill criticized McClure se-

verely for the low quality of the study sets hewas receiving. McClure blamed the illiteratecoolies he had been sending into the field forthe poor specimens collected. By contrast,Merrill was especially pleased with the speci-mens coming from Chen’s institute. Chenattributed this to the fact that his "assistantsare college graduates, not coolie collectors,able to observe as well as collect."39Although there was competition, relations

between Protestant Lingnan University andChinese Sun Yatsen University were notnearly so strained as those between Nankingand Southeastern. The tension between bota-nists of the two schools seemed due to Ling-nan’s sense of having proprietary rights inSouth China. Perhaps Lingnan’s desire tocontrol South China botanical explorationcame from president James McClure Henry,son of Benjamin Henry, South China explorerand first Lingnan president. James Henry mayhave seen Chen as a newcomer to SouthChina. Lingnan was certainly threatened byhow fast Chen was taking hold of the SouthChina work. The chairman of the biologydepartment and editor of the university’sLingnan Science journal, William Hoffman,was put off by Chen’s unwillingness to acceptlimitations. Chen was more assertive thanthe typical Chinese scholar, and Hoffman didnot know how to deal with him. No one atLingnan had been wronged by Chen, butHoffman was suspicious, explaining to Mer-rill that Chen "has pulled off a number of’crooked’ deals in his relationship with scien-tists and scientific institutions of which I amaware. "’°

18

According to Chen, the friction was due tohis unwillingness to fall in with Lingnan’splans. After Lingnan obtained a substantialgrant from the China Foundation, an infor-mal meeting among Chen, Hoffman, and afew of the other Lingnan people was called todiscuss plans for cooperation. Hoffman madethree proposals: that the two institutionsexchange specimens, divide the territory, andnot visit the same locations in the sameseason. Exchange of specimens, Chen replied,need not be contingent on Lingnan’s getting agrant. Chen saw the other proposals as re-strictions under the mask of cooperation. Heexplained his position in no uncertain terms:"I came to Kwangtung [Guangdong] to studythe flora of Kwangtung, and ... I intend to goany place, any time and as many times asnecessary, so long as I find means to do so ...to accomplish two principal objects-to pub-lish a good flora of the province, and to gatherand sow seeds of as many rare plants as pos-sible in order to save them from certain ex-tinction."4’

During 1930 Chen reached out to the for-eign scientific community in China andaround the world. Chen usually did not pub-lish in the journals of foreign institutions inChina, but in 1930 he published "Forestryand the Conservation of Resources" in theLingnan Science journal. Chen was trying toincrease awareness among foreigners of oneof China’s critical problems. Also in 1930,Chen’s botany institute started publishingan English-language journal. Formerly, SunYatsen University’s publications had been inChinese and dealt with problems of only localinterest; the new journal was intended for"the scientific world as a whole." Chen andhis colleagues accepted Merrill’s advice tohave a one-word title for ease of citation; theycalled the journal Sunyatsenia because theUniversity was founded by Dr. Sun, "the’father’ of our republic...."42Chen attended two international scientific

congresses in 1930. At the Fourth Pan-PacificScience Congress in Java, Chen gave a paperon the flora of Guangdong. In August, the

Fifth International Botanical Congress metin Cambridge, England. For the first time inthe history of the meeting, there was a sym-posium on the flora of China, and for the firsttime there was attendance by Chinese bota-nists. The symposium brought together ex-perts on China’s flora from Leningrad, Copen-hagen, Berlin, Vienna, Florence, Paris, Lon-don, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, New York, Nan-jing, and Guangzhou. Chen participated asthe representative of the Botanical Instituteof Sun Yatsen University, the Science Societyof China and the national government ofChina. In his address to the symposium, hereviewed the development of botany in

China, dividing its history into three phases,"the period of ancient Chinese research, theperiod of early European research, and theperiod of modern Chinese research." "

In the first period, from the first to thenineteenth centuries, botanical informationwas compiled and published in herbals, ency-clopedias, and dictionaries; in the second pe-riod, beginning in the eighteenth century,European botanical explorers collected plantsin China, enriching the herbaria of leadingbotanical institutions in the West-this wasthe material Chen was studying while inEurope; in the third period, Chinese them-selves were "undertaking a re-examination ofthe vegetation of their own country on ascientific basis." This last period began in1916 when Qian Songshu published his spe-cies of Ranunculus in Rhodora. Chen sum-marized the publications of the other leadingChinese botanists, Zhong Xinxuan, Hu Xi-ansu, Qin Renchang and himself. Of the five,only Qin had not been trained at Harvard’sArnold Arboretum. Chen surveyed the lead-ing botanical institutions in North, Central,and South China and described the growth oflibraries and herbaria. Many in his audiencealready were familiar with the story. Throughexchanges, they had obtained volumes ofChinese botanists’ publications for their li-braries and specimens with Chinese bota-nists’ labels for their herbaria. Chen appealedfor their continued cooperation in the build-

19

ing of reference collections in China.43Before and after the conference there was

time for study of the collections at Kew Gar-dens in London and discussions with Merrill.At the beginning of 1930, Merrill left theUniversity of California to become director ofthe New York Botanical Garden. Merrill hadmoney for exploration, and Chen proposed abotanical expedition to Hainan under thejoint auspices of the New York BotanicalGarden and his own institute.44 The idea de-veloped into a series of expeditions carriedout over the next few years. The European tripwas a punctuation point in Chen’s career. Hewas now working as an equal with his West-ern colleagues; he was part of the interna-tional botanical community.During the 1930s, work on the flora of

South China steadily expanded under Chen’sleadership. In 1934, the China Foundationupgraded Chen’s science professorship to aresearch professorship so that Chen could co-ordinate botanical work in Guangdong andGuangxi provinces. The foundation and theGuangxi provincial government providedfunds to organize the Research Institute ofBotany at the University of Kwangsi (Guang-xi), with Chen as head. The institute used thebuilding of the former British consulate inWuzhou. The situation at the University ofGuangxi was congenial; president Ma Junwuwas specially interested in biology-he hadtranslated Darwin’s Origin of Species intoChinese-and was sympathetic to Chen’s re-search.°s

In 1935, Chen’s work and the work of bota-nists throughout China benefited fromMerrill’s change of position from Director ofthe New York Botanical Garden to Adminis-trator of Botanical Collections at HarvardUniversity. Now the leading Western experton China’s flora was united with the exten-sive collections of Chinese plants at theArnold Arboretum and the Gray Herbarium.That same year Chen and Hu Xiansu pub-lished volume four of their Icones PlantarumSinicarum, dedicated to Merrill "in recogni-tion of his signal contribution to the knowl-

edge of the flora of Hainan and Kwangtung[Guangdong]."The 1930s were productive years for Chen,

and he became accepted as the leading figurein South China botany by both Chinese andforeigners. He was held in affectionate regard,and his personal life was a major item ofgossip among botanical workers at Sun Yat-sen, Lingnan, and Kwangsi. In the mid-1930sChen started collaborating with his niece,Chen Shuzhen, known as Faith, on Chinesetrees of the storax family. Chen had alreadymarried the daughter of a wealthy Hong Kongfamily, but the marriage had not producedchildren. When Chen and Faith were seenconstantly working together, rumors of aromance became rife among South Chinabotanical workers. After Chen’s wife died, heremarried, but not Faith. He married hishousemaid, who bore him two children, a boyand a girl.46

The War Years, 1937-1945Botany in China and Chen’s career developedswiftly until the outbreak of war with Japanin 1937. The country was shocked when Japa-nese troops invaded the capital in Nanjing,looting and raping with fierce savagery. Chenworked at the botanical institute in Guang-zhou until the city fell to the Japanese inOctober 1938. Chen later recounted to Mer-rill his escape to Hong Kong during the Japa-nese bombing:

Bombs fell on the compounds of our Insti-tute.... You suggested removal to HongKong in readiness for instant shipment ofthe herbarium and library to New York, forthe duration, at your expense.... Wemoved somehow. Finally Canton [Guang-zhou] was completely evacuated but Islipped alone into Shameen [Shamian]....The Japanese used Germans to search resi-dences of Shameen for Chinese refugees.They came to my hiding place at midnightbut I tricked the Nazis. When my missionfailed I made my way by foot to Hong Kong gdisguised as a coolie.

Chen and his coworkers resumed operationsin the Kowloon section of the British colony

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as best they could. The China Foundationcontinued its support, but those funds werenot sufficient. Chen’s "sister-in-law mort-gaged her house to keep the Institute run-ning." When Chen cabled Merrill for money,Merrill sent small amounts out of his ownincome.4’The Japanese captured Hong Kong on

Christmas day, 1941. Japanese soldiers withfixed bayonets took possession of theinstitute’s Kowloon premises. Chen againsuccessfully obtained sanctuary for theinstitute’s botanical work. He asked the di-rector of education of the Japanese puppetgovernment in Guangdong for permission tomove the botanical collections of Sun YatsenUniversity back to Guangzhou. Chen gotpermission and an appointment as professorin the puppet government’s Kwangtung Uni-versity, which had taken over the LingnanUniversity campus. The institute movedback.After the Japanese defeat, the Chinese

Nationalist government charged Chen with"cultural collaboration" with the enemybecause of his willingness to deal with thepuppet government. The popular fervor sur-rounding the war-criminal trials producedhysterical accusations. Chen had goneagainst the Chinese tradition of absolutelyopposing the enemy; now his own enemieshad an opportunity to attack him. An investi-gating committee of the Ministry of Educa-tion and representatives of a group of profes-sors and staff of Sun Yatsen Universityclaimed that Chen worked for the Japanesepuppet government as director of the "Bureauof International Propaganda." Chen got a law-yer, the same Sun Yatsen University lawprofessor appointed to defend the Com-mander of Japanese forces in South China,and solicited letters from Merrill and othercolleagues attesting to the value of his actionsto save the herbarium. Since there was noBureau of International Propaganda, andsince Chen’s actions regarding the institute’scollections seemed justified, the chargeswere quashed.°~

.

In 1946, Merrill arranged funding for Chento come to the United States to work atHarvard for a year or two. With the criminalcharges dropped it now seemed possible, butthe Sun Yatsen University chancellor re-quested Chen stay in China, and Chen had"no alternative but to comply." Chen workedto get his two institutes moving again, butover the next year he became depressed. Noone at the Guangzhou institute was

adequately paid. There was dissatisfaction,hopelessness, and a loss of will. Chen felttime slipping by. Since the Japanese capitula-tion, the institute had made no progress.Chen told Merrill: "I am only a few monthsthis side of sixty with nothing much to lookforward to aside from a lonely old age. I amutterly tired in body and spirit but goadmyself on with feigned optimism." Chen feltthe ambition for a final spurt of accomplish-ment. He asked the seemingly indefatigableMerrill: "Out of your rich life and experiencewhat would you think I must do to get out ofthis slough of despond?"’9Chen did not know that Merrill had spared

his Chinese colleagues news of his own de-spondency. Merrill resigned the directorshipof the Arnold Arboretum in June 1946 over acontroversy about the use of the arboretum’sendowment, an endowment that he waslargely responsible for building up. Merrillstressed to contributors that their gifts wouldonly be used for arboretum purposes and usedthe funds to augment the living collections ofthe arboretum as rapidly as possible. He wascriticized for obtaining more material thanthe arboretum could digest. The Harvardadministration promoted a plan that woulduse the arboretum’s endowment for botanywork in general at Harvard. Merrill foughtthe plan, maintaining that he was followingthe indenture of 1872 to establish and supportan arboretum "which shall contain as far as ispracticable, all trees and shrubs ’whetherindigenous or exotic, which can be raised inthe open air...."’ The new plan would wreckthe great heritage of Charles Sargent. Merrilllost the battle with Harvard, and he lost his

21

Professor Chen Huanyong, founder and first director of the South China Botanical Institute in Canton. Photographcourtesy of Professor F. H. Chen, director of the South China Botanical Institute of the Chinese Academy of Science(Academia Sinica) through Dr. Shiu-ying Hu.

health as well.~°In June of 1949, Chen wrote to Merrill of his

desperate attempts to save the institute inGuangxi as the South China situation be-came tense.5’ It was the last time Merrillheard from Chen. The revolution under theleadership of the Chinese Communist Partywas successful. Science in China would becompletely reorganized.

Science in the People’s Republic,1949-1971On 1 November 1949, the new Chinese Acad-emy of Sciences was established and rapidlybegan absorbing scientific research institutesin the Beijing area. In late November, HuXiansu wrote to Merrill about the troubles

and suspension of work at the Fan MemorialInstitute of Biology while it was being trans-ferred to the academy’s control. Hu hoped theinstitute could return to normal operationswhen the new arrangements were finalized.Hu had not heard from Chen, but explainedthat "Canton [Guangzhou] has been ’liber-ated,"’ and he trusted that Chen was "doingwell, as the present regime professes a highesteem to natural science and to scientists."SzIt was not until 1954, that Chen’s institute atSun Yatsen University was also placed underthe auspices of the Academy of Sciences andgiven a new name, South China Institute ofBotany.~

In September 1954, 1,200 delegates as-

sembled in Beijing for the First National

22

People’s Congress, the meeting which ap-proved the constitution of the People’s Re-public of China. Chen and fellow botanistsQian Songshu and Qin Renchang were amongthe scientists who participated. On the after-noon of the fifteenth in Huai Ren Hall, Chair-man Mao Zedong opened the conference, hisremarks punctuated by the delegates thun-derous applause. Along with general exhor-tations, Chairman Mao urged the people to"do their best to learn from the advanced ex-perience of the Soviet Union...."54 During thesessions, many delegates made speeches. Theparticipating scientists, almost all trained inthe West, must have squirmed in their seatswhen chemist Hou Debang, vice chairman ofthe All-China Federation of Scientific Socie-ties and renowned for his research on sodamanufacture, gave his speech. Hou was agraduate of the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, Pratt Institute, and ColumbiaUniversity. He prefaced his remarks by con-fessing. "I am a person who has most deeplyreceived American imperialist education, aperson who received the severe poison ofEnglish and American capitalist education."During the anti-Japanese war, Hou supportedWestern science; after liberation he turned toSoviet science. Other scientists gavespeeches: geologist Li Siguang, engineer MaoYisheng, mathematician Hua Luogeng, andMinister of Forestry Liang Xi.ss At one ses-sion, biologists including Chen, Qian Song-shu and Qin Renchang proposed that eachprovince be required to designate a forestpreserve to protect wild vegetation used inscientific research. The State Council ap-proved their proposal.ssThe same year as the National People’s

Congress, Chen published a paper on thecharacteristics of Soviet science as under-stood through its research on the bark ofEucommia (duzhong) .,17 The following year,1955, Chen was made a member of the Chi-nese Academy of Sciences. As China increas-ingly turned towards the Soviet Union, ideasfrom Pavlov’s psychology and physiology,Lepeshinskaia’s cell biology, Michurin’s ar-

boriculture and Lysenko’s genetics enteredChinese biology. A heated controversy devel-oped between the supporters of Morganist(American) genetics and Lysenkoist (Soviet)genetics. Although Hu Xiansu’s work did notbear on genetics, he involved himself in thedebate as a matter of principle.~ Chen steeredclear of this trouble.

Through the 1950s and early 1960s, Chenkept publishing. Before liberation his workwas mostly written in English; after libera-tion he wrote only in Chinese. This did notrepresent a total withdrawal from interna-tional botany; descriptions of new species andhigher groups included the Latin descriptionsrequired by international rules. Other col-leagues also moved to the new pattern oflanguage use. Hu Xiansu did not make theshift as rapidly as Chen, but by 1958 he also nolonger wrote in anything but Chinese. Thischange was no doubt healthy for the develop-ment of Chinese botany, but the abrupt tran-sition served to further isolate Chinese bota-nists and their colleagues in the West fromeach other.

China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revo-lution began in 1966. In most areas, scientificwork came to a halt. During the anti-Japanesewar, there had been research activity. Nowthere was no research, no writing. Many sci-entists suffered deprivations and indignities.The few biologists permitted to read booksconsidered themselves fortunate in the ex-treme. China, at war with herself, suppressedher scientists. Because Chen had exchangedbotanical specimens and literature with for-eign research institutions, he was accused ofhaving illicit relations with foreign countries(litong waiguo) and of being a cultural traitor(wenhua hanjian). Severe persecution brokehim in body and mind. By the end of 1970 hewas eighty-one years old and severely ill. Hewould not live to see the end of the culturalrevolution, nor would he live to see relationswith the United States reestablished.The miseries of the Cultural Revolution

reached their high point in 1971. Scientistsunder attack had the added anguish of seeing

23

their families suffer as well. Cultural Revolu-tion politics followed Chen into Guang-zhou’s Sand River Hospital, where he layterminally ill. At the beginning of January1971, a certain professor came to extend hisregards. It was reported that Chen said, "Ifirmly trust the party; I firmly trust theparty’s policies; I firmly trust ChairmanMao’s line." He died a few weeks later.59

Endnotes1. "Chen Huanyong" is the equivalent in hanyu pinyin,

the official romanization of the People’s Republic ofChina, for Woon-Young Chun, Woon-Yung Chun, orW. Y. Chun, the various spellings Chen used for hisname on publications or correspondence not in theChinese language.A bibliography of Chen’s scientific works can be

compiled from Elmer Drew Merrill and Egbert H.Walker, A Bibliography of Eastern Asiatic Botany(Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts: Amold Arboretum,1938), pages 79, 198, and 318; Egbert H. Walker, ABibliography of Eastern Asiatic Botany Supplement t1, (Washington, D. C.: American Institute of Biologi-cal Sciences, 1960), pages 42, 48, and 49, and 226;Zhongguo zhiwuxue hui [Chinese Botanical Soci-ety], editor, Zhongguo zhiwuxue wenxian mulu[bibliography of Chinese botany] (Beijing: Kexuechubanshe, 1985), Volume 1, pages 68 and 69, 373;Volume 2, page 829.

2. Charles Sprague Sargent, "The First Fifty Years of theAmold Arboretum," Journal of the Arnold Arbore-tum, Volume 3, Number 3 (January 1922), pages 127and 129.

3. For a historical summary of the literature on thesimilarity between the floras of eastern Asia andeastern North America, see Li Hui-lin, Floristic Re-lationships Between Eastern Asia and Eastern NorthAmerica (Philadelphia: American PhilosophicalSociety, 1971), reprinted from Transactions of theAmerican Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol-ume 42 (1952), pages 372 and 373, and D. E. Bouffordand S. A. Spongberg, "Eastem Asia-Eastem NorthAmerican Phytogeographical Relationships-A His-tory from the Time of Linnaeus to the TwentiethCentury, Anna7s of the Missouri Botanical Garden,Volume 70, Number 3 (1983), pages 423 to 439. ForGray’s work in this area, see A. Hunter Dupree, AsaGray (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959),Chapter 13. A summary of Bretschneider’s shipmentof seeds to Sargent is contained in Bretschneider toSargent 9/25/1893, Arnold Arboretum Archives,Harvard University.

4. See Stephanne B. Sutton, Charles Sprague Sargent andthe Arnold Arboretum (Cambridge: Harvard Univer-sity Press, 1970), Chapters 8 to 10.

5. This can be seen by following the annual reports forthe arboretum’s herbarium in the Journal of theArnold Arboretum.

6. A. J. Philpott, "Comes From China to Boston to StudyChinese Trees," Boston Globe, 25 November 1917,page 25.

7. Li Shugang, "Mianhuai jiaohui, nuli pandeng" [Recallthe teaching, work hard to climb], Guangdongsheng gzhiwuxuehui huikan, Volume 2 (1985~, page 126;Marion Roby Case, The Second Summer at HillcrestFarm (Weston, Massachusetts, 1911), page 6.

8. Information on Chen’s early years is sparse and unre-liable. I have drawn mostly on a few lines in ChenFenghuai et al., "Jinian woguo jiechu zhiwuxuejiaChen Huanyong xiansheng" [CommemoratingChina’s outstanding botanist, Chen Huanyong"],Guangdongsheng zhiwuxuehui huikan, Number 2(1985), page 112. A. J. Philpott, "Comes From Chinato Boston to Study Chinese Trees," mentions fatherChen’s job at the Hanbury School. For informationon the Hanbury School, see N. Gist Gee, editor, TheEducational Directory for China (no place: Educa-tional Association of China, 1905), Appendix C, page34; Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jindaishi yanjiusuofanyishi, Jindai laihua waiguo renming cidian [Dic-tionary of foreigners who came to China in themodem period] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexuechubanshe, 1981), page 189.

9. Sheila Geary, "The History of the Case Estates"(unpublished manuscript, 1981), pages 3 and 4.

10. John G. Jack, "The Arnold Arboretum: Some Per-sonal Notes," Chronica Botanica, Volume 12,Numbers 4 to 6 (1948 and 1949), page 187.

11. Woon Young Chun [Chen Huanyong], "Forestry inChina," Chinese Students’ Monthly, Volume 6,Number 3 (10 January 1911), pages 274 to 276.

12. New York State College of Forestry at SyracuseUniversity, News Letter, 19 August 1914, page [5].

13. Woon Yung Chun, "The Ithaca Conference," Chi-nese Students’ Monthly, Volume 9, Number 1 (10November 1913), pages 59 to 63. For the consortium,see Roberta Allbert Dayer, Bankers and Diplomatsin China 1917-1925 (London: Frank Cass and Com-pany, 1981), page 25.

14. Woon Yung Chun, "East Is East and West Is West," "

Chinese Students’ Monthly, Volume 9, Number 6/10 April 1914), pages 491 to 493.

15. Woon Yung Chun, "Bitter Strength," Chinese Stu-dents’ Monthly, Volume 9, Number 8 ( 10 June 1914),pages 602 and 603.

16. Woon-young Chun, "Recent developments in sys-tematic botany in China," in: Fifth InternationalBotanical Congress, Report of Proceedings (Cam-bridge : Cambridge University Press, 1931), page 524;

24

Chien Sung-shu [Qian Songshu], "Two Asiatic Alliesof Ranunculus pensylvanicus," Rhodora, Volume18, Number 213 (September 1916), pages 189 and190.

17. For information on Qian Songshu and ZhongXinxuan’s careers at Harvard, see their respectiveregistration cards, UA V 161.272.5 and UA V 252.-276, Harvard University Archives. For a biography ofQian, see Zou Anshou, "Qian Songshu," in: Tan Jia-zhen, editor, Zhongguo xiandai shengwuxuejiazhuan [Biographies of modem Chinese biologists](Changsha: Hunan kexue jishu chubanshe, 1986),pages 12 to 20.

18. For Chen’s addresses, see his Bussey InstitutionRegistration and Record Card, UA V 252.276, Har-vard University Archives.

19. A. J. Philpott, "Comes From China to Boston toStudy Chinese Trees," page 25.

20. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 1/25/47, Ar-nold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, GrayHerbarium, Harvard University.

21. For Wheeler’s action, see Bursar, Harvard Universityto John G. Jack 5/23/25, Arnold Arboretum ChineseCorrespondence, Gray Herbarium, Harvard Univer-sity. For Wheeler’s publications on the ants of China,see the years 1921, 1923, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1931, and1933 in the bibliography in: Mary Alice Evans andHoward Ensign Evans, William Morton Wheeler,Biologist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1970).

22. John Jack to B. L. Robinson, 7/1/19, Gray HerbariumLibrary, Harvard University.

23. Benjamin C. Henry, Ling-Nam or Interior Views ofSouthern China, Including Exploiations in the Hith-erto Untraversed Island of Hainan (London: S. W.Partridge and Company, 1886), page 383.

24. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 1/25/47, Ar-nold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, GrayHerbarium, Harvard University.

25. Two Chinese Muslims quit the University of Nan-king rather than submit to the religion requirements;see Jessie Gregory Lutz, China and the ChristianColleges, 1850-1950 (Ithaca: Comell UniversityPress, 1971, page 92). Chen Fenghuai et al., "Jinianwoguo jiechu zhiwuxuejia Chen Huanyong xiansh-eng," page 114.

26. Interview with Chen Fenghuai, South China Insti-tute of Botany, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 4/5/86.Professor Chen Fenghuai was Chen Huanyong’sstudent at the University of Nanking. After ChenHuanyong switched to Southeastern University,Chen Fenghuai followed him there. For a short biog-raphy of Chen Fenghuai, see Zhongguo kexuejia ci-than [Dictionary of Chinese scientists], Volume 1,

pages 201 to 203 (1982).27. On Guo’s recruitment activity, see Barry Keenan,

The Dewey Experiment in China: Educational Re-form and Political Power in the Early Republic(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), pages56 and 57. For a biography of Guo, see BiographicalDictionary of Republican China, Volume 2, pages276 and 277 (1968).

28. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 1/25/47, Ar-nold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, HarvardUniversity. For a short biography of Hu Xiansu, seeYu Dejun, "Hu Xiansu," in: Tan Jiazhen, editor,Zhongguo xiandai shengwwruejia zhuan, pages 70to 85.

29. Hu Xiansu to C. S. Sargent 12/17/20, Arnold Arbore-tum Chinese Correspondence, Harvard University.

30. For information on Hu’s enrollment, see his BusseyInstitution Registration and Record Card UA V252.276, Harvard University Archives.

31. John Jack to Chen Huanyong 5/30/25, Arnold Arbo-retum Chinese Correspondence, Harvard Univer-sity.

32. Hu Xiansu to John Jack 10/2/25, Arnold ArboretumChinese Correspondence, Harvard University.

33. Elmer Drew Merrill, "The Local Resident’s Opportu-nity for Productive Work in the Biological Sciences," "

Lingnan Science Journal, Volume 7(1929), page 293.See R. Schultes, "Elmer Drew Merrill-An Appre-ciation," Taxon, Volume 6, Number 4 (May 1957),pages 89 to 101 for brief overview of Merrill’s career.

34. Albert N. Steward to Elmer D. Merrill, 6/21/24,Herbarium, University of California, Berkeley.

35. Elmer D. Merrill to Chen Huanyong, 1/15/24, Her-barium, University of Califomia, Berkeley.

36. John H. Reisner to Elmer D. Merrill, 11/2/25, Her-barium, University of Califomia, Berkeley. Reisneralso lobbied Comell Professor Harry H. Love; seeReisner and T. S. Kuo to Love, 10/20/25, Herbarium,University of California, Berkeley.

37. Hu Xiansu to John Jack 9/30/26, Arnold ArboretumChinese Correspondence, Harvard University.

38. Qin Renchang to Elmer D. Merrill, 6/29/27, 11/2/27,Herbarium, University of California, Berkeley.

39. Elmer D. Merrill to Floyd A. McClure, 1/14/29;McClure to Merrill, 1/25/29; Chen Huanyong toMerrill, 1/22/29, Herbarium, University of Califor-nia, Berkeley.

40. William E. Hoffman to Elmer D. Merrill, 3/14/29,Herbarium, University of California, Berkeley.

41. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 7/22/29, Her-barium, University of Califomia, Berkeley.

25

42. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 11/22/29,Herbarium, University of California, Berkeley; P. F.Shen, "Forward," Sunyatsenia, Volume 1, Number 1(June 1930), no page number. Merrill had also influ-enced Academia Sinica’s Metropolitan Museum ofNatural History to adopt a one-word title for itscontributions, Sinensia; see Chien Tien-ho [QianTianhe], "Preface," Sinensia, Volume 1, Number 1(August 1929), no page number.

43. Chun Woon-yung, "Recent developments in system-atic botany in China," in: Fifth InternationalBotanical Congress, Report of Proceedings (Cam-bridge : Cambridge University Press, 1931 pages 524to 528. For a brief description of the Fifth Intema-tional Botanical Congress, see A.B. Rendle, "A shorthistory of the International Botanical Congresses,"Chronica Botanica, Volume 1 /1935[, pages 39 and40.

44. Elmer D. Merrill to Chen Huanyong, 12/24/30;Chen to Merrill, 1/15/31, Herbarium, University ofCalifomia, Berkeley.

45. For a brief description of the Institute, see W. Y.Chyne, Handbook of Cultural Institutions in China(Taipei: Ch’eng-wen Publishing Co., 1967), page 227.

46. Interview with Hu Shiu-ying [Hu Xiuying], HarvardUniversity Herbaria, Harvard University, 8 March1988. Dr. Hu, a botany student at Lingnan Universityduring the 1930s, reports these "facts" of Chen’spersonal life as common knowledge among SouthChina botanists.

47. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill 1/25/47, ArnoldArboretum Chinese Correspondence, Harvard Uni-versity.

48. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill 1/15/47, 3/5/47, Arnold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence,Harvard University.

49. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 9/29/48,Arnold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, Har-vard University.

50. Elmer D. Merrill, "Memorandum to Dr. P. C.

Mangelsdorf," 5/20/46; Augusta S. Merrill to Rich-ard A. Howard, 10/29/46, Archives, New York Bo-tanical Garden. Merrill mentions his resignation ofthe Arnold Arboretum directorship on 1 June 1946 inElmer Drew Merrill to Dean Paul H. Buck, 2/12/47,Arnold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, Har-vard University.

51. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 6/20/49, Ar-nold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, HarvardUniversity.

52. Hu Xiansu to Elmer D. Merrill, 24/11/49, AmoldArboretum Chinese Correspondence, Harvard Uni-versity.

53. Zhongguo kexueyuan bangongting, editor, Zhong-guo kexueyuan: jieshao [The Chinese Academy ofSciences: an introduction] (Beijing: Kexue Chuban-she, 1986), page 239.

54. For a description of the delegates attending, seeSurvey of China Mainland Press Number 884 (8 and9 September 1954), pages 16 and 17; a translation ofChairman Mao’s speech is in: Survey of China Main-land Press, Number 889 (16 September 1954), pages1 and 2.

55. "Hou Debang daibiao de fayan" [Delegate HouDebang’s speech], Renmin ribao [People’s Daily], 27September 1984, page 4. For summaries of the re-marks of Li, Mao, Hua and Liang, see Hsinhua NewsAgency, Daily News Release, Number 1746 (25September 1954), pages 246, 247, 257, and 258. Forbiographies of Hou Debang and Hua Luogeng, seeBiographical Dictionary of Republican China, Vol-ume 2 (1968), pages 84 to 86,185 to 187; for Li Siguangand Liang Xi, see Donald W. Klein and Anne B. Clark,Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism1921-1965, Volume 1 (Cambridge: Harvard Univer-sity Press, 1971), pages 522 to 524, 543 and 544.

56. "Chen Huanyong," Zhongguo ke~cuejia cidian,Volume 2 (1983), page 205.

57. Chen Huanyong, "Cong duzhong de yanjiu lai renshiSulian kexue de tedian" [Study of the bark of Eu-commia to understand characteristics of Soviet

science"], Kexue Tongbao, 1954, Number 8, page 22.

58. For Hu Xiansu’s position, see the translation ofsome of his remarks at the 1956 genetics symposiumat Qindao in: Laurence Schneider, editor, Lysen-koism in China: Proceedings of the 1956 QingdaoGenetics Symposium (Armonk, New York: M. E.Sharpe, Inc., 1986), pages 21 to 24; for a full transcriptof the symposium, see Li Peishan et al., Bai jia zheng gming fazhan kexue de bi you zhi lu: 1956 nian 8 yueQingdao yichuanxue zuotanhui jishi [Let a hundredschools contend-the only way to develop science: arecord of the August 1956 Qingdao Genetics Confer-ence] (Beijing: Shangwu ymshuguan, 1985).

59. Chen Fenghuai et al., "Jinian woguo jiechu zhiwu-xuejia Chen Huanyong xiansheng," page 117.

William J. Haas is a graduate student in the History ofScience Program, Harvard University.

Forestry in Fujian Province, People’s Republic ofChina, during the Cultural Revolution

Richard B. Primack

Excesses of the Cultural Revolution undermined forestry education in Chinaand greatly harmed her forests

Fujian (Fukien) Province is situated on thecoast of central China, opposite Taiwan.Until recently it was closed to foreigners, andeven today special permission is needed tovisit anything other than a few large coastalcities such as Fuzhou (Foochow) and Ximen(Amoy). In January 1986 I made a two-weektrip to Fujian to visit my wife Margaret’srelatives and to give lectures at the Fujian For-estry College. The visit provided an opportu-nity to evaluate the ecological status of a partof China rarely visited by foreign scientists.During the visit I learned about the devasta-tion of Fujian’s forests during the CulturalRevolution (1966-1976) and the govern-ment’s response to rebuild the forests after1976.

Lying just north of the Tropics, Fujian en-joys a subtropical climate. Most rain comes inthe spring, and frosts are light except in themountains. The maj or fruit tree is the orange,lychees and longans being grown in southernand coastal areas. Most of the province ishilly, with some beautiful scenic areas, suchas the famous Wuyi Mountain. Fujian is veryold, the province having been established as apolitical division more than 20,000 years ago,and is famous for its many historical places,superb handicrafts of lacquerware, and thecultured and industrious nature of its citi-zens.

The native forest (evergreen subtropicalforest) has an extremely high diversity ofwoody species. Following disturbance byman, two fast-growing native conifers, Chi-

nese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) and Chi-nese pine (Pinus massoniana Lamb), regener-ate very well. The Chinese pine may formalmost pure stands, particularly on dry sites.The Chinese fir grows best in moist sites,often in association with other species. Thisecological disclimax of conifers has been usedby foresters to maximize wood production ei-ther by manipulating the forest or by plantingthe seedlings.Margaret and I were met at the Fuzhou

airport by her relatives, who are peasants inthe rural Minqing District. As we drovethrough the hill country from the airport totheir home district, a distance of roughly 120kilometers, we did not see any mature forests.The hillsides were covered with grass, lowshrubs, and ferns. Many hillsides were cov-ered with plantations of small trees of pineand Chinese fir. Most of these trees looked tobe less than ten years old. Arriving at the largevalley of my in-laws’ village, we could seegrasses (mostly Miscanthus sinensis and Mis-canthus floridulus/, ferns (mostly Dicranop-teris linearis), and shrubs covering all of theslopes for miles around. Yet from my perspec-tive it seemed curious that, despite the abun-dance of grassland, there didn’t seem to be anygrazing animals on the extensive hill slopes,except for an occasional water buffalo. WhenI questioned my wife’s relatives about theabsence of trees and grazing animals, theytold me that twenty years before the valleyhad been heavily forested. To say the least, Iwas dumfounded at this abundant change in

27

land use in a district that had been settled forthousands of years.The next week, we travelled for nine hours

over the hill country to reach the FujianForestry College in Nanping, in the center ofthe Province. During this entire trip we sawno mature native forest or large trees-onlyextensive plantations of small coniferoustrees and small stands of naturally regenerat-ing pines. By the time we reached Nanping, Iwas full of questions about the absence offorests. Over the next week, the faculty of theForestry College described to me how theFujian forests and the Fujian College weredamaged during the Cultural Revolution.Before the Cultural Revolution began, in

1966, there were 2,500,000 hectares of forest,out of a total of 12,000,000 hectares. About 40percent of the forest was warm-temperate orsubtropical forest. The forest had been man-aged for hundreds, possibly even thousands,of years for sustained yield. Permission to cutany tree, even for local use, had to come fromForest Department officers. The forests con-tained large, mature trees of chestnut (Cas-tanopsis species), camphor tree (Cinna-momum camphor/, Phc~be namu, and Shimasuperba. Many species in these forests aresuperb hardwoods prized for their use in fur-nature. Camphor wood was especially valuedfor boxes because it repelled insects. Largestands of bamboo forest (Phyllostachys pu-bescens) are located within the hardwood for-est and were actively managed for bambooproducts.The Cultural Revolution was a time of con-

fusion and turmoil in China that lasted from1966 until 1976 (Abelson, 1979). Its osten-sible purpose was to eliminate capitalist andbourgeois attitudes from society and to returnto the original ideals of the communist revo-lution. During the Cultural Revolution, lead-ers of all government departments cameunder criticism. The Forest Department wasnot exempt, even though its policies were ofsuch clear benefit to the people. At publicmeetings the officers of the Forest Depart-ment were criticized and publicly humiliated

by the Red Guard, the youth movement of theCultural Revolution. The department staffwere told repeatedly that all true knowledgeand power rested with the peasants and thatthe Forest Department officers were of thebourgeoisie. The Forest Department staffwere urged to organize political groups toformulate forestry ideas consistent with theaims of the Cultural Revolution. The resultof this political activity was that by 1970 theofficers of the Forest Department had lost allcontrol of the management of the forests.Planting of trees continued on the regularschedule, but supervision of logging com-pletely ceased. If the peasants wanted wood,then they were not stopped, since the Cul-tural Revolution taught that the peasantsknew best. Unsupervised cutting of treesstarted as a trickle, but soon the people real-ized that the Forest Department was notgoing to interfere. The peasants’ hunger forwood had been carefully controlled for centu-ries by the Forest Department. Without thiscontrol, the hunger for wood exploded into asix-year-long orgy of illegal logging. Through-out the province, carefully managed naturalforests and mature plantations were cutdown and used for furniture, construction,and fuel. The peasants scrambled to cut asmuch wood as possible because the wood wasfree, and everyone wanted as much as hecould get. From 1970 until 1976, most of thetimber trees were cut down in certain areas ofFujian Province. The trees remaining wereeither small or of poor form. While some ofthe forests were still present, their economicvalue was drastically reduced. The destruc-tion of the forests was particularly severe inthe southern part of Fujian Province, wherethere was less forest to begin with. The hill-sides around the big towns had been com-pletely forested with Chinese firs and pines in1966, but by 1972 the hills were totallycleared of trees. This same destruction offorests was also occurring, to a greater orlesser degree, throughout China during thisperiod.One of the major targets of the Cultural

28

Revolution was the Education Department.The Red Guards felt that this department wasfull of bourgeois teachers who were corrupt-ing the youth. The Forestry College wasunder the supervision of the Education De-partment and was therefore heavily criti-cized. The beginning of the Cultural Revolu-tion was a time of great uncertainty at theForestry College. No one knew what theCultural Revolution meant. Fighting brokeout in the city of Nanping among the RedGuards and other groups within the Commu-nist Party. In Nanping, as in the rest ofChina, the Red Guards gained control of thepolitical structure and began to implementthe policies of the Cultural Revolution. Oneof their first actions was to burn down afamous Buddhist temple, built in the ninthcentury, as well as churches and shrines. Inthe Forestry College, professors began to becriticized by forestry students belonging tothe Red Guards. The professors were criti-cized for their supposed bourgeois attitudesand for teaching capitalist ideas that were abetrayal of the peasants. At no time duringthis period were specific policies of the For-estry College or the Forest Department criti-cized. During the first four years of the Cul-tural Revolution the criticism levelledagainst the professors increased in intensityand violence. At first, professors were beingparaded in front of large public gatherings,publicly criticized, and even publicly slappedand beaten by the Red Guards. Their familieswere harassed in the same way. Professorsbegan to fear for their lives. Confusionreigned at the College. Students were attend-ing classes infrequently and were spendingmuch of their time at political meetings. Thecity of Na~ping was similarly in chaos. Theactivities of the Red Guards in the ForestryCollege were led by about six individuals,who were responsible for most of the vio-lence. The remaining hundreds of studentswent along with the policies of the CulturalRevolution, in part because they were dupedand in part because they had no choice.

Finally, in April 1970, the leaders of the

Communist Party decided to disband theForestry College. It was felt that the Collegewas worthless because it taught only bour-geois values. The entire faculty of the Collegeand their families were sent out to the coun-tryside to work at the Forest Departmentnurseries, where they toiled alongside peas-ants producing tree seedlings for planting.During this period the faculty members hadno idea of how long they would remain in thecountryside or what their fates would be. Thefaculty members were treated well by thepeasants with whom they worked, and thememories of these times are not entirely un-pleasant. In August 1972, with no explana-tion or warning, the faculty members wererecalled to Nanping to reconstitute the Col-lege. But any hopes that the College wouldreturn to normal were immediately dashed.The new student body of so-called worker-peasant-soldier students was selected by theCommunist Party primarily on the basis ofpolitical qualifications. No entrance exami-nations were required of incoming students.While many students were well qualified,others had received no prior education at all.The curriculum was rewritten by the stu-dents to conform with the views of the Cul-tural Revolution. Political meetings and dis-cussions were emphasized in the new cur-riculum. Attending class or taking examina-tions was considered irrelevant. College poli-cies and decisions and student promotionswere made by student political groups. Thefaculty was powerless and could only pas-sively submit to forces totally beyond its con-trol. To resist the student political groupswould have meant public criticism, throughphysical intimidation had ceased by thistime. Students "graduated" from the Collegeon the basis of their political views, not theirknowledge of forestry.In 1976, the Gang of Four was overthrown

and the leaders of the Cultural Revolutionarrested. At this point, Deng Xiao Ping, thefuture leader of China, returned to the gov-ernment and took over the administration ofscience and education. The effects of these

29

political developments in Fujian Provincewere felt gradually. Over a two-year periodthe province returned to normal and the For-estry College’s curriculum was reestablished.The leaders of the Forestry College and theForestry Department regained control oftheir staffs. Students of the College againshowed respect for their teachers. The RedGuard leaders in the Forestry College whohad committed acts of violence were jailed forseveral years but never tried for their crimes.Those unqualified students who had notstudied during their years at the Collegefailed their examinations and were returnedto their villages. Students who had "gradu-ated" from 1972 to 1976 but who were un-qualified were evaluated and reduced inrank.The Forest Department reasserted its con-

trol over forest management, with no resis-tance from the peasants. The peasants them-selves welcomed the return to normality af-ter the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.Besides, everyone could see how badly theforests had been damaged. Since 1976, theForest Department has vigorously continuedits policy of planting trees. Two million hec-tares of forests have been planted since 197G,giving a total projected forest area of5,000,000 hectares. About 35 percent of thisforest is native hardwoods, mostly thinnedforest or scrubby, regenerating forest.Roughly 18 percent is bamboo forest. Theremaining forest is composed of Chinese firand pine, most of which is planted and smallin size. There currently is a shortage of timbertrees in the province, since almost none ofthe planted forests are mature. The mostsevere shortages are of the high-quality hard-woods used in furniture manufacture. Thecurrent burst of economic activity in Chinahas aggravated the problem by increasing thedemand for construction wood. New build-ings are being built everywhere throughoutthe cities, towns, and villages of Fujian Prov-ince, and wood is needed.There are several bright notes in this sad

story. At least 3,000,000 hectares of land have

been planted with trees during the lasttwenty years. As these forests mature overthe next thirty years, the timber situationwill gradually improve. Plantation forestswill be established on all hillslopes, andmuch of the forest will be of good size.The importance of forests to the people of

China was reaffirmed recently by the

People’s Congress, which established a TreePlanting Day. On March 12 of every year,each individual, no matter where he lives,must travel to the mountains and plant a tree.However, the natural forests that were de-stroyed can never be regained. The ForestDepartment has recognized the importanceof protecting the remaining stands of naturalforest through a special classification: Pro-tected State Forest Reserves. The largest ofthese is the 50,000-hectare reserve at scenicWuyi Mountain. These Forest Reserves andthe enormous plantings of young trees repre-sent the continued hope of the Chinesepeople, despite the tragedy of the CulturalRevolution. This is a lesson for foresters,politicians, and the general public about thedangers of ignoring the realities of forestecology.

References

Abelson, Philip H., 1979. China in transition. Science,Volume 203, Number 4,380), pages 505 to 508.

Dickerman, M. B., D. P. Duncan, C. M. Gallegos, and F.B. Clark, 1981. Forestry today in China: Report ofa month’s tour by a team of American foresters.Journal of Forestry, Volume 79, Number 2, pages[i], 71 to 75.

Hsiung, W.-Y., and F. D. Johnson, 1981. Forests andforestry in China. Journal of Forestry, Volume 79,Number 2, pages 76 to 79.

Kellison, R. C., R. J. Dinus, L. Fins, K. K. Ching, S. L.Krugman, and J. A. Winienski, 1982. Forest treeimprovement in the People’s Republic of China.Journal of Forestry, Volume 80, Number 10, pages[i], 638 to 641.

Richard B. Primack is on the faculty of Boston Univer-sity.

INTERVIEW

Chinese Botany and the Odyssey of Dr. Shiu-ying HuIn a brief retrospective interview, a Chinese botanist who remained in the UnitedStates, recalls some highpoints of Chinese botany at Harvard over the past severaldecades

In the interview transcribed below, Sally Aldrich Adams captures some of the essence ofrecent Chinese botany as it was experienced by Dr. Shiu-ying Hu, a former member of thestaff of the Arnold Arboretum. Mrs. Adams conducted this and several other interviews atArnoldia’s request so as to document the contributions that Arboretum botanists have madeto the development of botany in China.

In the years when the People’s Republic ofChina was closed to outsiders and foreignscientists could not keep up their contactswith Chinese colleagues or pursue their stud-ies inside the country, the Arnold Arboretumwas fortunate in having on its staff a botanist,Dr. Shiu-ying Hu, who could maintain atleast a thread of the former association.

Dr. Hu had come in 1946 to study with Dr.E. D. Merrill for three years, and she stayedon to work for twenty-eight more, until herretirement. She still works in her office everyday.When Chinese botanists did not dare write

to Americans, they could write to her; whenthey needed books but could not get Ameri-can dollars to buy them, they turned to her.She provided, at her own expense, the litera-ture they asked for and for several of thempaid membership fees in international scien-tific associations so that they could receivepublications. To Dr. Hu, this was a way shecould serve China.

"In Peking, in Canton, in different cities, Idid that for them. While there was no com-munication between American botanists andChinese botanists, there was a slight commu-nication between Chinese botanists and 1!"Dr. Hu’s English slips a little when she isexcited, as she was when she related this toher visitor. "Whenever they needed some lit-erature-at that time we didn’t have Xeroxmachines-I photographed them, or I micro-filmed, or some I typed, so whatever material

they needed in their work, I sent it to them.That has made many people know that thereis a Chinese botanist at Harvard." "

To go back to the beginning of Dr. Hu’sstory:

In 1934 Shiu-ying Hu went to LingnanUniversity in Canton (formerly CantonChristian College) as a graduate student inbotany, with an assistantship in the herbar-ium. Impressed that every sheet of specimenshad been identified by "E. D. Merrill," shesaid she wanted to study with this famousbotanist and asked where he was. She wastold that he was at Harvard and that Harvard"didn’t take girls." "

Just as Shiu-ying Hu got her master’s de-gree, Japan started war with China, and heruniversity moved to a safer area, the city ofChengtu, where West China Union Univer-sity, also a missionary college, became host toseveral refugee colleges.

There, in addition to teaching courses inbotany, Miss Hu was elected president of theInternational Women’s Club, a circumstanceinstrumental in getting her to America tostudy with Dr. Merrill.The vice president of the club was a Rad-

cliffe graduate, and she sent Miss Hu’s appli-cation to her own alma mater. When a fellow-ship offer came through, two other Americanfriends provided money for Miss Hu’s trans-portation. (Her salary from the university atthe time was paid in rice, three bushels amonth, a medium of exchange not readily

31

converted into tickets to America.) JSoon after Dr. Hu graduated from Rad-

cliffe, a vacancy for a trained botanist whoknew Chinese plants opened up at the ArnoldArboretum. "At that time, racial and sexualdiscrimination was very heavy, so my salarywas about the same as the janitor’s," Dr. Husaid with a smile. "Being a Chinese botanist,I had no business staying in America and notworking for Chinese botany. But now in Har-vard I was working for Chinese botany, so Ifelt all right." "

One of Dr. Hu’s projects in the 1950s wasfinanced by a grant from a group of Chinesebusinessmen who, unable to return to Com-munist China, wanted to do something fortheir homeland. Her proposal was for a floraof China, and as the first step she completedan index to the flora in card-catalog form."Many people come and use my file, and

that’s one of the Arboretum’s working toolsin research on Chinese plants," she said.The second step would have been to pub-

lish the index, but administrative and finan-cial changes intervened, and only two plantfamilies were published, the Composite andthe Orchidaceae.

"That desire to work on the flora of Chinawas never dead," Dr. Hu said, "but I becameold, and I said, ’If I can’t finish the flora of thisbig area, I could work on the flora of a smallerarea.To this end, she went to Hong Kong six

times between 1968 and 1975 at the invita-tion of the Chinese university there, andcollected specimens while teaching twocourses. While in Hong Kong in 1975, a tourwas organized for faculty members to see sci-ence, education, and technology in thePeople’s Republic of China. With great diffi-culty because of her American passport, Dr.Hu obtained the necessary permit to go.

"Mao Tse-tung was still alive. No Chinesebotanist was allowed to see any foreign bota-nist." Dr. Hu told her story dramatically."But I want to see Chinese botanists. Howcan I do it? If only I can let them know I’m inBeijing, I know they will see me, because theyasked me to do so much. I made many peti-tions [to the Chinese government agent in

charge of the tour]; they just won’t listen tome." ,,

Without official sanction, Dr. Hu sent themessage that she was in Beijing to a botanistfriend with whom she had corresponded foryears. The messenger was her nephew, whofound the man in a traditional bathhouse andreceived only the message, "Go back." Laterthat night a girl appeared at Dr. Hu’s hotelroom and told her to go to the Institute ofBotany the next day. Skipping the tour pro-gram for the day, Dr. Hu went to the instituteand found a party in her honor, as well as thegratifying chance to talk with her Chinesecolleagues. Further gratification came thenext day as her plane was leaving. T. T. Yu,Deputy Director of the Institute of Botanyand a former student of H. H. Hu, came withtwo other botanists to say, "Please bear ourgreetings to botanists elsewhere." "

In 1977, after Mao died, T. T. Yu asked Dr.Hu to go to China and work with youngChinese botanists. She went the followingyear lecturing and giving intensive coursesin Beijing, Lingnan, Manchuria, and Shang-hai.

Dr. Hu made her last trip to China in 1984,when she was the keynote speaker at aninternational symposium in Hong Kong onChinese medicinal-plant research and wenton to Canton to give ten lectures. She wasmade an honorary professor at South ChinaAgricultural University in a ceremony at-tended by the governor of the province andother officials. A second honor came to her inher own province, Kiangsu, where she wasmade an advisor of the botanical institute.

She then travelled to Tibet and Mongolia,"... and I went to places that no other foreignbotanists were allowed to go. So I have in myfile material to write on the frontier of Chi-nese botany"-both the physical frontier andthe metaphorical one, she explained.

Dr. Hu is at present writing articles onChinese food plants and on Chinese medici-nal plants introduced into America as orna-mental plants and weeds. "Seven hundred ofthem," she exclaimed. "And I had such a bigpart!" ~~

Pinus bungeana Zuccarini-A Ghostly Pine

Robert G. Nicholson

This attractive, white-barked pine from China, once a favorite of emperors,would be suitable for modern parks, cemeteries, campuses, golf courses, andlawn plantings

When one sits in a garden with peach trees,flowers, and willows, without a single pinein sight, it is like sitting among children andwomen without any venerable man in the

vicinity to whom one may look up.-Li Li-weng

Despite its chauvinism, Li’s assertion doesindicate the high regard the Chinese have forpines in the garden. It also hints at the sym-bolic system that existed in Li’s time: plantssited in a garden were not chosen for form,texture, and flower alone, but also as symbolsof abstract thought or representatives ofhuman qualities. Pines portrayed hardiness,strength of character, virtue, or stalwartfriendship in adverse times. These extra-

ordinary trees had a stately poise, a silentwisdom attained only through longevity;their age often was embodied by their gnarledhabits or stout trunks. Along with bambooand the early-flowering apricot, pines formeda trio of plants known as "the three friends ofthe cold season," as they lent respite to winterwith their evergreen foliage or early flower-ing.One pine in particular has for centuries

been a favorite species for temple gardens and

Two lacebark pines (Pinus bungeana Zuccarini) nearthe royal tombstones in Beijing as illustrated in RobertFortune’s Yedo and Peking (1863).

courtyard plantings and has come to beknown in the West as the lacebark pine, Pinusbungeana. It was first described by JosephZuccarini (1797-1848) from specimens thatAleksandr von Bunge (1803-1890) had col-lected in the temple gardens of Beijing; hewas the first Westerner to collect the species.The first live material brought to England wasa plant that Robert Fortune (1812-1880) hadpurchased near Shanghai. An Englishman,Fortune travelled to China four times be-tween 1843 and 1861. His interest in China’sflora enabled him to supply plants to theleading horticulturists in London. An engag-ing chronicler of the era, Fortune gives vividaccounts in his books of plant hunting inChina during the Imperial Dynasty, a periodwhen "barbarians" were severely limited intheir movements and had to resort to subter-fuge to slip into restricted areas.

In his book Yedo and Peking (1863), For-tune offers an account of a group of lacebarkpines seen in a cemetery just west of Beijing."Near these Royal tombstones," he wrote,

I observed a species of Pine-tree, having a peculiarhabit and most striking appearance. It had a thicktrunk, which rose from the ground to the height ofthree orfour feet only. At this point, some eight orten branches sprang out, not branching or bendingin the usual way, but rising perpendicularly, asstraight as a larch, to the height of 80 or 100 feet.The bark of the main stem and the secondary

34

stems was of a milky-white color, peeling likethat of Arbutus, and the leaves which were chieflyon the top of the tree, were of a lighter green thanthose of the common Pine. Altogether this treehad a very curious appearance, very symmetricalin form, and the different specimens, which evi-dently occupied the most honourable place wereas like one another as they could possibly be.In all my wanderings in India, China or Japan, I

had never seen a pine tree like this one. Whatcould it be?-Was it new ?-And had I at last found

something to reward me for my journey to the farnorth? I went up to a spot where two of these treeswere standing, like sentinels, one on each side ofa grave. They were both covered with cones and,therefore, were in a fit state for a critical examina-tion of the species. But although unknown inEurope, the species is not new. It proved to be onealready known under the name of Pinus

bungeana. I had formerly met with it in a youngstate in the county near Shang hae, and hadalready introduced it into England, although,until now, I had not the slightest idea of its

extraordinary appearance when full grown. Iwould therefore advise those who have youngplants in their collection to look carefully afterthem as the species is doubtless perfectly hardy inour climate and at some future day, it will form aremarkable object in our landscape. One of thetrunks, which I measured at three feet from theground, was 12 feet in circumference.

Since Fortune’s day, there have been nu-merous accounts of the pine in China, gener-ally descriptions of trees seen at temples inBeijing, and always expressing amazement atthe white, milky bark. Forsythe Sherfessee, aforestry advisor to the Chinese governmentin the 1920s, wrote, "It is one of the mostremarkable of all trees on account of thedazzling whiteness of its bark, a featurewhich renders it wholly and strikinglyunique. In addition, its form is graceful andpicturesque, and its foliage unusually deli-cate." "

Accounts from the wild are much harder tofind, testifying to the rarity of the plant. Fewwestern botanists have seen the species in itsscattered native range, the provinces ofHopei, Shansi, Shensi, Kansu, Szechuan,Hupeh, and Honan.

E. H. Wilson found the plant in two districtsin western Hupeh but considered it very rare.

He reported trees 25 meters tall growing at1,250 meters in elevation, anchored in mudand sandstone shales. Wilson wrote that "onold trees the bark on the trunk, on the mainbranches and exposed main roots, is milk-white and exfoliates in flakes of irregularcontour."

Joseph Hers, a Belgian who collected innorthern China during the 1920s, noted theplant growing "in rather large numbers in thedistrict of Lushih (Honan), always at about1500 meters altitude, clinging to the rocksand also south west of Taiyuanfu (Shansi) atthe same altitude." He recorded that thewood is very brittle, and despite a fine grainand nice color, was used by the Chinese onlyfor coffins. Hers’ account of the lacebark pine ealso told of a brisk trade in wild-collectedseedlings of the "white-boned pine" betweenShansi and Honan to other provinces.Two accounts detail the tree’s growth in

Shansi Province. In 1924, Dr. Harry Smith, abotanist from Uppsala University in Sweden,travelled through the southern and centralareas of the province and reported that largeareas had been clear-cut and eroded near themore settled areas. Even the cemeteries andtemples did not seem to shelter the flora as inother regions of China. One very importantexception existed. A temple in the westernMien-shan Mountains at Chieh-Hsiu, hadpreserved an entire forest of Pinus bungeana,numbering about 4,000 trees. The lacebarkpine was the chief component of this exoticwhite forest, but Cupressus sp. and Pinus tab-ulxformis also grew in the dry, stony ground,as did an understory of Cotoneaster, Pyrus,Lespedeza, Vitex, Vitis, and Rhamnus. I canonly imagine the images a nature photogra-pher such as Eliot Porter or Ansel Adamsmight have produced from a forest of white-skinned conifers bedecked with soft, freshsnow. In 1929, T. Tang, on an expedition fromthe National University of Peking also col-lected in central and southern Shansi. Herecorded Pinus bungeana from a number ofsites, estimating some trees to be over 100feet (30 m) tall. In a somewhat ominous aside,

35

Taken in 1913 at the Imperial Gardens, Beijing, by j. G. Coolidge, this photograph includes a specimen of the lacebarkpine (far right). From the Archives of the Arnold Arbroetum.

Tang records reckless lumbering, with thelacebark pine being felled and sawed intoplanks.Contemporary descriptions of Pinus

bungeana are somewhat scarce, and its pres-ent range would seem to be much less thanwhat it once was, owing mainly to the needfor fuel and lumber. Zhiming Zhang of theBeijing Botanical Garden and a former MercerFellow at the Arnold Arboretum, wrote to melast summer, in response to my inquiriesabout the plant, that "Pinus bungeana, gener-ally speaking, is widespread in northernChina. It appears," he continued,

everywhere as a primary urban tree, which can befound in temples, ancient graveyards, emperors’palaces, gardens and even streets. It ranges natu-rally about 1200-1850 meters above sea levelfrom Shanxi to Henan Province. I saw a naturalforest of it on the westem Henan boundary withShanxi province at the time when I went there forplant collection in 1981. It grows not as well asthat in the city. It grows slowly when it is youngand faster after ten years or more.

Our experiences with the cultivation ofPinus bungeana at the Arnold Arboretumecho those of Mr. Zhang, as the plant growsvery slowly from seed. Seed sent fromChina and sown in late March of 1986 (AA

1304-85) germinated heavily after a three-month cold stratification, but two years later

stood only three inches high. Seed that washand delivered by a delegation of visitingChinese botanists in 1979 (AA 79-566) germi-nated well, but its progeny now stands at only27 inches high after nine years’s growth in ournursery.Our plants on the grounds also seem small

for their age in comparison to other species ofpine. AA 1285-64-B, a plant almost 25 yearsold, is a four-stemmed specimen measuringonly 10 feet high and 9 feet wide, although ithas put on 4 feet of growth in the last threeyears. Our two oldest plants were grown fromseed received from the Lushan Botanic Gar-den in China in 1949. AA 663-49-A is plantedin full sun on a rock outcrop. Its nine stemsshow mottled bark, and it measures 15 feethigh by 20 feet wide. Its three-stemmed sib-ling, AA 663-49-B, is perhaps better sited andmeasures 26 feet high by 30 feet wide.Clearly, it is not a species for those inclinedtoward rapid gratification, but for gardenerswho can derive pleasure in planting for futuregenerations.Although the lacebark pine has been in

cultivation in the United States for over onehundred years, there are relatively few speci-mens of note, and it is mainly found on oldestates and in botanic gardens. To my knowl-edge, the premier specimen is in Brookline,Massachusetts, at "Holm Lea," the old estateof Charles Sprague Sargent, first director of

36

The mosaic bark of the lacebark pine (Pinus bungeana) at "Holm Lea," the estate of Charles Sprague Sargent inBrookline, Massachusetts. Photographed by the author.

37

the Arnold Arboretum. It is over a centuryold, stands 65 feet high and 30 feet wide andpresents an irregular-oval outline. Its textureis fine, and one can easily see the elevenstrongly vertical main trunks. The thickest ofthese has a 5-foot circumference at breastheight, while at ground level, where thetrunks converge, the circumference meas-ures 16 feet.

Its bark is a spectacular collage of color,showing irregular splotches of lime green,buff brown, and yellow against a backgroundof silvery gray. It gives the effect of a massiveabstract mosaic sculpture.This vivid bark, however, presents a mys-

tery : why aren’t any of the trees in cultivationin the West showing white bark?

I suspect it may be either a function of age,the bark turning white with old age (as ourhair does), or the result of something in oursoils or our weather that precludes the forma-tion of the white bark and that causes thepines to retain a mosaic pattern throughouttheir lives. As J. M. Addis reported seeingyoung trees with white, flaking bark in aBeijing nursery, it looks as though the mys-tery will continue a bit longer.The Chinese have used Pinus bungeana for

specimen planting in courtyards and havealso lined avenues with it, letting its whiteboughs arch together. I suggest that it beconsidered for lawn plantings, public parks,cemeteries, golf courses, and corporate andcollege campuses. It has shown a wide rangeof tolerances, growing in poor alkaline soiland acid brown soils and tolerating tempera-tures over 100 F and below 0 F. Selectivepruning during the early stages of a tree’s lifewould help to show the trunk to best advan-tage and establish good form.This amazing tree, a witness to the burials

of the Celestial Empire, is still a rarity outsideChina. Its odyssey from remote windsweptmountains in China to royal courtyards, tothe estates and botanical gardens of the Westis an unrivalled journey. If it proves nothingelse, it is that the appreciation of beautyknows no boundaries of time or space.

Plant collector Frank N. Meyer photographed this speci-men in ShantungProvince in 1907. He stated that "Themost noble specimen of a white-barked pine yet seen byme. Growing m the Yen-fu-tse temple [in Chu-fu]. Meas-ures sixteen feet in circumference, six feet above theground. I estimate its age at fifteen or sixteen centuries,though the Chinese say it is much older. For noble,serene impressiveness, I have not seen a tree yet, thatcan be compared with this white-barked pine. Photo-graph from the Archives of the Arnold Arboretum.

We are pleased to report a surplus ofPinus bungeana seedlings and are of-fering trios of two-and-one-half-year-old plants of AA 1304-85 for $25.00,payable in advance. Orders received bySeptember 30, 1988, will be mailed inthe fall, those afterwards in the spring.Send orders, with checks made payableto "Arnold Arboretum," to:

Robert G. NicholsonPine DistributionDana GreenhousesArnold Arboretum

ArborwayJamaica Plain, MA 02130-2795

38

ReferencesJ. M. Addis. Pinus bungeana. Journal of the Royal

Horticultural Society, Volume 85, Part 2,pages 92 and 93 (February 1960).

Emil Bretschneider. History of European BotanicalDiscoveries in China. Two volumes. Saint

Petersburg: Imperial Russian Academy of Sci-ences, 1898 (Leipzig: Zentral-Antiquariat derDeutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1981). [ .1,167 pages.

Chow Hang-fan. The Pamiliar Trees of Hopei. Hand-book Number 4. [Beijing:] Peking NaturalHistory Bulletin, 1934. (Pinus bungeana:pages 30 to 32.)

William B. Critchfield and Elbert L. Little, Jr. Geo-graphical Distribution of the Pines of theWorld. Miscellaneous Publication 991. Wash-

ington, D. C.: Forest Service, United StatesDepartment of Agriculture, 1966. 97 pages.

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, Fourth Series, Volume 5(1909). (Pinus bungeana: Plate 8240.)

William Dallimore. The lace-bark pine of China (Pinusbungeana Zuccarini). Journal of the RoyalHorticultural Society, Volume 59, Part 2,pages 249 and 250 (July 1934).

P. H. Dorsett. Glimpses of the white-barked pine inPeiping and vicinity. Pages 38 and 39 in: Inter-national Dendrology Society Year Book 1975.London: Intemational Dendrology Society,1976. 96 pages.

Editorial Committee. A portfolio of conifers. AmericanHorticultural Magazine, Volume 42, Number4, pages 188 to 206 (October 1963). (Pinusbungeana: pages 193 to 195.)

Henry J. Elwes and Augustme Henry. The Trees of Grea tBritain and Ireland, Volume 5. Edinburgh:Privately printed, 1910. Pages 1001 to 1334.(Pinus bungeana: pages 1050 and 1051.~ .[

Aljos Farjon. Pines, Drawings and Descriptions of theGenus Pinus. Leiden: E. J. Brill/Dr. W. Back-huys, 1984. 220 pages.

Robert Fortune. Yedo and Peking: A Narrative of aJourney to the Capitals of Japan and China.London: J. Murray, 1863. 395 pages.

Henry F. Hance. Pinus bungeana, Zucc. Journal of Bot-any, British and Foreign, Volume 11, Number3, page 91 (March 1, 1873).

Joseph Hers. Notes on the conifers of North China. TheChina Journal of Science and Arts, Volume 4,Number 2, pages 76 to 83 (February 1926).

Joseph Hers. Le culte des arbres en Chine. Bulletin de laSociete Dendrologique de France, Number 45,pages 104 to 109 (15 November 1922).

Maggie Keswick. The Chinese Garden: History, Art e~JArchitecture. London: Academy Editions,

1978. 216 pages.Hui-Lin Li. The lace-bark pine, Pinus bungeana. Morris

Arboretum Bulletin, Volume 19, Number 1,pages 3 to 7 (March 1968).

John H. Reisner. Progress of forestry in China. AmericanForestry, Volume 26, Number 322, pages 655to 658 (November 1920).

Charles Sprague Sargent, editor. Plant. Wilsonix, Part4. Publications of the Arnold ArboretumNumber 4. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Har-vard University Press, 1914-1916. 661 pages.(Pinus bungeana, pages 13 and 14.)

Osvald Siren. Gardens of China. New York: The RonaldPress, 1949. 149 pages.

Harry Smith. A preliminary report on botanical investi-gation in south and central Shansi. ChinaJournal of Science and Arts, Volume 3, pages449 to 454 and 503 to 509 (1926).

Arthur de Carle Sowerby. The white-barked pine (Pinusbungeana Zucc.) in North China. Journal ofthe Royal Horticultural Society, Volume 62,Part 10, pages 443 to 445 (October 1937).

T. T’ang. Account of a botanical tour in Shansi. Bulletinof the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology,Volume 2, pages 45 to 63 (1931). [ .

C. L. Wu. The taxonomic revision and phytogeographi-cal study of Chinese pines. Acta Phytotaxon-omica Sinica, Volume 5, pages 131 to 163

(1956).

Robert G. Nicholson is a member of the staff of theArnold Arboretum. He writes often for Arnoldia andother horticultural publications.

BOOKS

Living Treasures: An Odyssey throughChina’s Extraordinary Nature Reserves, byTang Xiyang. Illustrated with more than 300color photographs. Foreword by S. DillonRipley. New York: Bantam Books, Inc.; Pe-king : New World Press. 208 pages. $29.95($34.95 in Canada).

MARION D. CAHAN

Tang Xiyang, a journalist who was banished,along with his family, to a "reform-through-labor" camp in the Chinese countryside dur-ing the Cultural Revolution, has written a de-lightful and informative book about his ad-ventures in China’s superb nature reserves.Tang’s total concern, dedication, and unshak-able resolve to protect all wildlife in spite ofgreat physical hardship and danger are inspir-ing. In addition to recounting adventures ofhis own in more than three hundred of thereserves, he provides data on their environ-ment, topography, and history, and on thepresent status of their floras and faunas. Hiswriting, pleasantly fluid and absorbing, is

complemented by gems of classic Chinesepoetry and historical accounts.China’s nature reserve system is undergo-

ing a vigorous period of growth. In a recentthree-year period, one hundred seventy newreserves were established-nearly as many aswere established in the previous thirty years.I found it particularly interesting to learn ofthe high protection that China now providesthe plants and animals in the reserves. Severepenalties are imposed on those who trap orkill animals, for example.The "human element" of animals is con-

veyed in touching vignettes. There is a par-ticularly lovely story about Tang’s discover-

ing an unspoiled expanse of "swan lakes" inXinjiang’s Yurdus Basin, where herdsmenlive in peaceful coexistence with swans,which they consider to be the bearers of goodluck from heaven. In other vignetteselephants display "community spirit," mon-keys break open ropes with their teeth torescue trapped friends. Tang describes the lastsurviving band of Guizhou golden monkeys,animals so rare that their scientific value isbeyond calculation; the crested ibis; the rarereptile that may have prompted the myth ofthe dragon; the elusive panda.This compelling and fascinating book is

the first-ever joint publishing venture be-tween the American publisher, Bantam

Books, and the People’s Republic of China. Afew photographs, unfortunately, are not

sharp; this may be due to the difficulty ofholding a camera for long periods while wait-ing to take a shot. Also, many of the photo-graphs were taken from a great distance. Un-fortunately, too, there is no index. Despite itsshortcomings, this excellent book is wellworth reading.

Marion D. Cahan has been a volunteer member ofAznoldia’s editorial staff for the past several years. Analumna of Radcliffe College, she has studied architec-ture in the Graduate School of Design, Harvard Univer-sity.

40

U. S. POSTAL SERVICESTATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP,

MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION(Required by U.S.C. 3685)

1. Title of publication: Arnoldia. A. Publication Number:0004-2633. 2. Date of filing: December 18, 1987; 3. Fre-quency of issue: Quarterly. A. Number of issues pub-lished annually: 4. B. Annual subscription price: $12.00domestic, $15.00 foreign. 4. Complete mailing address ofknown office of publication: The Arnold Arboretum,Arborway, Jamaica Plain (Boston), Suffolk County, MA02130-2795. 5. Complete mailing address of the head-quarters or general business offices of the publishers: TheArnold Arboretum, Arborway, Jamaica Plain (Boston),Suffolk County, MA 02130-2795.6. Full names and com-plete mailing address of Publisher, Editor, and ManagmgEditor: The Arnold Arboretum, Arborway, Jamaica Plam(Boston), Suffolk County, MA 02130-2795, Publisher;EdmundA. Schofield, The Arnold Arboretum, Arborway,Jamaica Plain (Boston), Suffolk County, MA 02130-2795,Editor. 7. Owner: The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard Uni-versity, Arborway, Jamaica Plain (Boston), SuffolkCounty, MA 02130-2795. 8. Known bondholders, mort-gagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, orother securities: None. 9. For completion by nonprofit or-ganizations authorized to mail at special rates (Section411.3, DMM only): The purpose, function, and nonprofitstatus of this organization and the exempt status forFederal income tax purposes have not changed during thepreceding 12 months. 10. Extent and nature of circula-tion : A. Total number of copies. Average number ofcopies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 5,000.Actual number of copies of single issue published nearestto filing date: 5,000. B. Paid circulation. 1. Sales throughdealers and carriers, street vendors, and counter sales.Avezage number of copres each rssue during the preceding12 months: None. Actual number of copies of single issuepublished nearest to filing date: None. 2. Mail subscrip-tion. Average number of copies each issue during thepreceding 12 months: 4,116. Actual number of copies ofsingle issue published nearest to filing date: 4,068. C.Total paid circulation: Average number of copies eachissue during the preceding 12 months: 4,116. Actualnumber of copies of single issue published nearest tofiling date: 4,068. D. Free distribution by mail, carrier, orother means (sample, complimentary, and other freecopies). Average number of copies each issue during thepreceding 12 months: None. Actual number of copies ofsingle issue published nearest to filing date: None. E.Total distribution. Average number of copies each issueduring the preceding 12 months: 4,116. Actual number ofcopies of single issue published nearest to filing date:4,068. F. Copies not distnbuted. 1. Office use, left over,unaccounted, spoiled after printing. Average number ofcopies each issue during the preceding 12 months’ 885.Actual number of copies of single issue published nearestto filing date: 832. 2. Returns from news agents. Averagenumber of copies each issue during the preceding 12months: None. Actual number of copies of single issuepublished nearest to filing date: None. G. Total. Averagenumber of copies each issue during the preceding 12months: 5,000. Actual number of copies of single issuepublished nearest to filing date: 5,000. 11. 1 certify thatthe statements made by me above are correct and com-plete. Edmund A. Schofield, Editor.