“I must finish that writing on Delphinium grandiflorum L. while I can still work with the help of a magnifying glass. As for the rest of the work, I’m afraid I have to lay the burden on you guys,” Wang Wencai, an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), said to his assistant on the way home from the hospital.

Wang, who is 94-years-old, went to the hospital to have his left eye examined by a doctor in late February last year when he felt discomfort in his eye. It was not until then that his assistant knew the botanist lost vision in his right eye 10 years ago.

Thinking of how Wang had conducted research, published multiple works, finished dozens of papers, and prefaced works of others with only one healthy eye during the past decade, tears coursed down the assistant’s cheeks.

Wang has been devoted to research on plant taxonomy, plant systematics, and plant geography for more than seven decades. He has taken part in the compiling of Higher Plants of China, and Flora of China, two great works in China’s biological field, and has won the first prize of the State Natural Science Award twice.

Wang was born in 1926 in Laizhou, east China’s Shandong province. He studied in the department of biology in Beijing Normal University, graduating in 1949.

In 1950, Wang was transferred to the CAS, where he embarked on his research on plant taxonomy.

China has an abundance of plants, according to Wang, disclosing that foreigners began to collect specimens of plants in China in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

More than 200 foreign people have come to China to collect specimens of plants and returned home with a large number of precious specimens, while China’s taxonomic study wasn’t started then, Wang said.

Research on plant taxonomy in modern China dates back to the 1920s. The two books Wang has jointly compiled, Higher Plants of China, and Flora of China, contain significant results among all the fruits Chinese plant taxonomists have achieved during the past 100 years.

“Collecting specimens of plants is the first step of research on plant taxonomy,” said Wang, who has committed himself to field study since he started to work in the area.

He has been to untraversed remote areas in many parts of China to collect specimens, including south China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, southwest China’s Yunnan province and Sichuan province, as well as central China’s Hunan province.

Field study is very dangerous most of the time.

In November 1958, Wang got falciparum malaria when he conducted a field investigation in the tropical rainforest of Mengla county of Yunnan province.

After he was hospitalized in Kunming, capital of Yunnan, his condition worsened in December, running a high fever for several days in a row, no medicine seemed to work on him.

Fortunately, after blood transfusions donated by four young colleagues in Kunming Institute of Botany, CAS, Wang’s temperature broke and he was finally cured.

“Although we often encounter dangers while collecting specimens of plants, classifying and protecting plants makes us feel more fulfillment and happiness than anything else,” Wang shared.

Since they started field study in the spring of 1950, Wang and his colleagues have traveled across the country and gathered a great number of specimens of plants and rich first-hand research materials.

“The specimen room of our institute is now the largest one of its kind in China and Asia, but the number of our specimens is still far behind that of the famous herbariums in the world. We are only able to study the flora in China, and still couldn’t cover that of the world,” Wang said with regret.

Wang, though at such an advanced age, takes a shuttle bus to work at the Institute of Botany, CAS, two days a week.

His office, covering an area of 15 square meters, only has a desk, a chair, a book shelf, and a small sofa.

While many might be surprised by the simplicity of the place, he has worked tirelessly for more than 60 years. Wang only cares about the work he has devoted his whole life to.

“The study of plant taxonomy in our country started relatively later than that in other countries, and we still have a lot to do,” Wang said, adding that he hopes young successors will continue with his work and make greater contributions to China’s plant taxonomy research.