Volume 48 Number 2 Spring 1988

Arnoldia (ISSN 0004-2633; USPS 866-100) is pub- Page lished in quarterly, winter, spring, summer, and fall, 2 The Vulnerable and of by the Arnold Arboretum of . Endangered Xishuangbanna Prefecture, Yunnan Subscriptions are $12.00 per calendar year domestic, Province, $15.00 per calendar year foreign, payable in advance. Zou Shou-qing Single copies are $3.50. All remittances must be in U. S. dollars, by check drawn on a U. S. bank or by 9 Transplanting Botany to China: The Cross- international money order. Send subscription orders, remittances, change-of-address notices, and all other Cultural Experience of Chen Huanyong subscription-related communications to: Helen G. William J. Haas Shea, Circulation Manager, Arnoldia, The Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-2795. Telephone (617) 524-1718.

Postmaster: Send address changes to: Arnoldia The Arnold Arboretum Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-2795.

Copyright © 1988, The President and Fellows of .

Edmund A. Schofield, Editor Peter Del Tredici, Associate Editor Helen G. Shea, Circulation Manager Marion D. Cahan, Editorial Assistant (Volunteer)

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

26 Forestry in Fujuan Province, People’s Front cover:-Painting of Aquilaria sinensis (Loureiro) Republic of China, during the Cultural Gilg, a rare Chinese shrub. (See pages 2 through 8.) Revolution ~.Inside front cover:-Portrait of Chen Huanyong Richard B. Primack ( 1890-1971 as a young man. From The Index, the junior annual of the Agricultural College, for 1913. Used through the courtesy of the Archives of the 30 INTERVIEW University of Massachusetts at Amherst. (See page 9.)J Chinese Botany and the Odyssey of Dr. ~This page:-The Chinese characters for the name Shiu-ying Hu Chen of L. Harvard- Huanyong. Courtesy Sidney Tai, Adams Yenching Library. (See page 9.) ~o.lnside back cover :- Sally Aldrich "Nine Dragon Pine," a famous lacebark pine (Pinus bungeana) of the Chieh Tai Ssu Temple in the Western 32 Pinus bungeana Zuccarini-A Ghostly Pine Hills, located forty miles west of . Said to have Robert G. Nicholson been planted nine hundred years ago, the tree is called the "Nine Dragon Pine" in reference to its nine mam trunks. (Seepage 32.) / ~ Back cover:-Various structures 39 BOOKS of Pinus bungeana, the lacebark pine ( 1: section of a leaf; 2, stamen; 3 and 4, female bract with scale; 5, cone; 6 and 7, female bract with scale, in fruiting stage; 8, seed). From Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, 1909. (See page 32./J

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

Efforts are now being taken to preserve endangered species in the rich tropical flora of China’s "Kingdom of Plants and Animals"

Xishuangbanna Prefecture is a tropical area of broadleaf forest-occurs in Xishuangbanna. China situated in southernmost Yunnan Coniferous forest develops above 1,200 me- Province, on the border with Laos and Burma. ters. In addition, Xishuangbanna lies at the Lying between 21°00’ and 21°30’ North Lati- transitional zone between the floras of Ma- tude and 99°55’ and 101°15’ East Longitude, laya, Indo-Himalaya, and South China and the prefecture occupies 19,220 square kilo- therefore boasts a great number of spe- meters of territory. It attracts Chinese and cies. So far, about 4,000 species of vascular non-Chinese botanists alike and is known plants have been identified. This means that popularly as the "Kingdom of Plants and Xishuangbanna, an area occupying only 0.22 Animals." The Langchan River passes percent of China, supports about 12 percent through its middle. of the species in China’s flora. The species be- Xishuangbanna is very hilly, about 95 per- long to 1,471 genera in 264 families and in- cent of its terrain being hills and low, undu- clude 262 species of ferns in 94 genera and 47 lating mountains that reach 500 to 1,500 families, 25 species of gymnosperms in 12 meters in elevation. The highest peak is 2,400 genera and 9 families, and 3,700 species of meters in elevation. High mountains in the angiosperms in 1,365 genera and 208 families. north, including the Wuliang and Ailao The tropical features of Xishuangbanna’s Mountains, block the cold air from the north flora are quite distinct. Such tropical families and trap warm, humid air from the Indian as the Dipterocarpaceae, Myristicaceae, Ocean, creating a hot, humid, windless tropi- Tetramelaceae, Anonaceae, and Dilleni- cal climate. The mean annual temperature is aceae, and such genera as Ficus, Artocarpus, 18 C to 22 C, and, depending upon elevation Antiaris, Dysoxylum, and Aphanamixis are and topography, 1,000 millimeters to 2,200 represented. About 60 percent of the species millimeters of precipitation fall annually; as in Xishuangbanna’s flora also occur in Viet- a result, tropical forest and other tropical nam, Laos, Burma, and . During the past vegetation flourish on hillsides and in val- two centuries, many species from the Indo- leys. A great diversity of vegetation types- chinese peninsula and other tropical regions including tropical rain forest, seasonal rain have been successfully introduced into forest, montane rain forest, and evergreen Xishuangbanna. Among them have been Cassia siamea, Mesua ferrea, Crinum asi- aticum, Cananga odorata, and Bixa orellana. Cycas pectinata Griffith, a rare and vulnerable species. There are many endemic species in a ornamental and its and It is spectacular plant, fruit Xishuangbanna’s flora, such as Manglietia stem are used in medicine by the Dai minority of China. Photographs by the author. wangii, Polyalthia cheliensis, Phc~bepuwen- 4

sis, and Horsfieldia tetratepala; a number of carpa, Ostodes katharinx, and Pyrularia relict species, such as Cycas pectinata, Podo- edulis, for example, are important sources of carpus wallichii, Magnolia henryi, and Slad- food oil or industrial oil. Ten species-Cala- enia celastrifolia; and many rare species, mus flagellum, Calamus palustris, Calamus such as Manglietia fordiana, Michelia hed- nambariensis, etc.-yield rattan. Many spe- yosperma, Paramichelia baillonii, and Pseu- cies are aromatic, tanning, or resin and gum duvaria indochinensis. According to data plants, among them Elsholtzia blanda, Cin- collected by Li Yanhui, 153 endemic species, namomum mollifolium, Phyllanthus em- 31 relict species, and 133 rare species grow in blica, and Sterculia villosa. Xishuangbanna; of them, 110 are endangered During the past 20 years, many forests in or vulnerable (see the list on pages 6 and 7). Xishuangbanna were ruined. More than Twenty-eight wild types of cultivated 13,000 hectares of forest were cut each year as plant species and their relatives occur in a result of shifting cultivation, conversion to Xishuangbanna’s flora, among them Oryza rubber plantations, and demands for timber minuta, sinensis var. assamica, and fuel by local people. Recently, the forest Coix lacryma-jobi, Citrus grandis, and cover of Xishuangbanna has declined sharply, Momordica subangulata. Some may prove to from about 60 percent to 33 percent. Many have significant value in genetic research and hillsides that once were covered with rain breeding. forests are now grassland of cogongrass and More than 1,000 species in Xishuang- low shrub. Along with the destruction of banna’s flora are economically important. tropical forests, obviously, many plant and About 500 of them are medicinal plants that animal species have been threatened. It is are used locally or in traditional Chinese estimated that one species is lost for every medicine; among these are Amomum villos- 700 hectares of tropical forest ruined. If this is um, Taraktogenos merrillana, Cissampelos so, then more than 800 species of plant have paraira var. hirsuta, and Homalomena been lost or are in danger of being lost. If occulta. Rauvolfia yunnanensis has become remedial measures are not taken today, many an important source of reserpine, and May- species with valuable properties will be lost. tenus hookeri is alleged to have anti-cancer This would be a big mistake, one that our properties. descendents would be unlikely to forgive. More than 100 species of tree in Xishuang- The first volume of the Plant Red Data banna’s flora grow fast or produce high-qual- Book for China, recently issued by the Acade- ity timbers, the best example being Dal- mia Sinica (the Chinese Academy of Science), bergia fusca var. enneandra, which has lists 389 endangered species of Chinese purple-black heartwood. Its wood is very plants. The Book gives their morphological hard, heavy, and tough and so is used as a features, distributions, and statuses and de- substitute for rosewood. The fast-growing scribes methods for their conservation. Fifty- species Anthocephalus chinensis is another four of the species it lists are native to Xi- example. It is the most productive timber tree shuangbanna. in tropical tree plantations. Toona ciliata, The Chinese government devotes more Paramichelia baillonii, Gmelina arborea, attention to nature conservation now than it Altingia excelsa, Chukrassia tabularia var. once did. For example, 310 nature reserves, velutina, and Dysoxylum binecea?folium are with a total area of 167,000 square kilome- all valuable hardwood timber trees that are ters, have been established throughout the used in industry and construction. country, and the funding of nature-conserva- Xishuangbanna’s flora contains more than tion programs has been increased. In Xi- 100 oil-bearing species. Horsfieldia tetra- shuangbanna Prefecture, some 600,000 hec- tepala, Jatropha cureas, Hodgsonia macro- tares of tropical forest survive. To protect re- maining ecosystems and species, 200,000 forest fires, stop hunting and timbering hectares of land (about one tenth the within nature reserves, and deal with crimi- prefecture’s area) have been set aside as re- nal cases of vandalism. serves, including the Mengyang, Mengla, The Yunnan Institute of Tropical Botany, Menglun, Menghai, and Dashujiao reserves, Academia Sinica-formerly the Botanical and a team of 150 forest guards has been Garden of Xishuangbanna-is located in the organized. The guards patrol forests, prevent prefecture. It is has become an active center

Caryota urens Linnxus, the wine (or sago) palm, is an endangered species in China. The Dai minority use the tasty starch in the middle of the trunk for food. 6

for the study and conservation of tropical China or for that matter in the world, con- plants. More than 2,500 local and otherwise tains many rare, endemic, and economically tropical plant species, including dozens of valuable species. A veritable treasury for our endangered species, have been introduced well-being, it has suffered seriously in the and cultivated there. past. We must now work hard to prevent Xishuangbanna is a treasure house of natu- further losses to it. ral resources. Its flora, one of the richest in

Vulnerable and endangered members of Xishuangbanna’s flora

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

Relict species * Cinnamomum mollifolium H. W. Li * Alsophila spinulosa (Wallich ex Hooker) Litsea dilleni~folia P. Y. Bai 8z. P. H. Huang Tryon ~Neolitsea menglaensis Yang & P. H. Huang * Cycas pectinata Griffith * Horsfieldia pandurifolia Hu * Anchangiopteris henryi Christ & Giesenhagen i~Horsfieldia tetratepala C. Y. Wu * Cycas siamensis Miquel * Myristica yunnanensis Y. H. Li * Podocarpus imbricata Blume ~Anemone filisecta Wu & Wang ~Podocarpus wallichii Presl ~Capparis fohaiensis B. S. Sun ~Podocarpus fleuryi Hickel ~Xanthophyllum yunnanensis C. Y. Wu * Podocarpus nerrifolia Wight * Heliciopsis lobata (Merrill) Slaum var. micro- ~ oliveri Masters carpa C. Y. Wu & T. Z. Hsu Magnolia henryi Dunn Heliciopsis terminalis (Kurz) Sleumer * Sladenia celastrifolia Kurz Homalium laoticum Gagn. var. glabretum C. * Cenocentrum tonkinense Gagnepain Y. Wu ~Borthwickia trifoliata W. W. Smith * Parashorea chinensis Wang Hsie * Silvianthus bracteata Hooker fils ~Pellacalyx yunnanensis Hu * Pittosporopsis kerrii Craib ~Camellia taheishangensis F. S. Zhang * Cephalostigma hookeri C. B. Clarke ~Garcinia lancilimba C. Y. Wu ex Y. H. Li * Campanumcea parviflora /Wallich) Bentham ~Garcinia xishuangbannaensis Y. H. Li ~Zippelia begonixfolia Blume ~Ochrocarpus yunnanensis H. L. Li ~Grewia falcata C. Y. Wu Endemic species ~ cheliensis Hu * Manglietia wangii Hu ~Pterospermum yunnanensis Hsue * Manglietia microgyna Liou ~1’terospermum mengluensis Hsuee * ~Magnolia delavayi Franchet var. albivillosa Ostodes kuangii Y. T. Chang Liou * Sauropus coriaceus C. Y. Wu ~Cyathocalyx yunnanensis Y. H. Li & P. T. Li * Lithocarpus yiwuensis Huang & Y. T. Chang ~Cyathostemrna yunnanensis Hu * Maytenus diversicymosa S. J. Pei & Y. H. Li * Desmos yunnanensis (Hu) P. T. Li * Maytenus pseudoracemosa S. J. Pei & Y. H. Li ~Coniothalamus chinensis Hu ~Maytenus inflata S. J. Pei & Y. H. Li ~Cinnamomum austroyunnanensis H. W. Li ~Maytenus pachycarpa S. J. Pei & Y. H. Li 7

~Protium yunnanensis (Hu) Kalkm. * Hibiscus austroyunnanensis C. Y. Wu & K. M. * Amoora calcicola C. Y. Wu & H. Li Feng * Walsura yunnanensis C. Y. Wu * Erythroxylum kunthianum (Wallich) Kurz ’~Buchanania yunnanensis C. Y. Wu Ixonanthes cochinchinensis Pierre * Mastixia caudatilimba C. Y. Wu ~Chxtocarpus castanocarpus Thwaites ~Nyssa sinensis Oliv. var. oblongifolia Fang 8t Dalbergia fusca Pierre Soong Whitfordiodendron filipes (S. T. Dunn) S. T. Nyssa yunnanensis W. C. Yin Dunn ~Diospyzos atrotricha H. W. Li ~Distilopsis yunnanensis (H. T. Chang) C. Y. ~Marsdenia incisa P. T. Li & Y. H. Li Wu * Kopsia of ficinalis Tsiang & P. T. Li * Cyclobalanopsis rex (Hemsley) Schott * Radermachera microcolyx C. Y. Wu & W. C. * Trigonobalanus doichangensis (A. Camus) Yin Formanek ~Callicarpa yunnanensis W. Z. Fang * Celtis wightii Planchon * Salvia fragarioides C. Y. Wu * Antiaris toxicaria (Persoon) Leschenault * Arisxma austroyunnanensis H. Li Artocarpus lakocha Roxburgh * Achasma yunnanensis T. L. Wu 8t Senjen Laportea urentissima Gagnepain Poikilospermum suaveolens (Blume) Merrill Rare species * Maytenus hookeri Loesener * Manglietia fordiana Oliver * Garuga pierrei Guillaumin ~Michelia hedyosperma Law Toona ciliata Roemer ~Mitrephora wangii Hu * Toona microcarpa (de Candolle) Harms * Litsea magnolifolia Yang & P. H. Huang Xerospermum bonii (Lecomte) Radlkofer Litsea pierrei Lecomte var. szemaois Liou Pometia tomentosa (Blume) Teysmann & Bin- * Machilus rufipes H. W. Li nendijk ~Knema cinerea Warburg var. glauca Y. H. Li ~Nyctocalos shanica MacGregor & W. W. ~Horsfieldia kingii (Hooker fils) Warburg Smith Fleutharrhane macrocarpa (Diels) Formanek Gmelina arborea Roxburgh ~Piper pubicatulum C. de Candolle * Homalomena gigantea Engler ~Argemone mexicana Linnaeus * Tacca chantrieri Andr~ ~Lagerstr~mia intermedia Koehne * Caryota urens Linnaeus ’~Crypteronia paniculata Blumee ~Cochlospezmum vitifolium Sprengel Wild types of cultivated plants * Aquilaria sinensis (Loureiro) Gilg Oryza meyeriana (Zollinger 8~ Moritz) Baillon ~Zanonia indica Linnaeus var. granulata Tataoka Tetrameles nudiflora R. Brown Oryza minuta J. Presl Terminalia myriocarpa Heurck & Muller Camellia sinensis (Linnaeus) O. Kuntze var. Argoviensis assamica (Masters) Kitamura Anogeissus acuminata (Roxburgh ex de Can. Litchi chinensis Sonnerat dolle) Guillaumin var. lanceolata Wallich ex Citrus grandis Osbeck Clarke Mangifera sylvatica Roxburgh ~Quisqualis caudata Craib ~Cucumis hystrix Chakrav. ~Combreturn olivxfozme Chao Panax zingiberensis C. Y. Wu & Feng ex C. Carallia lancxfolia Roxburgh Chow * Calophyllum polyanthum Wallich ex Choisy Hovenia acerba Lindley var. kiukiangensis Mesua nagassarium (Burman fils) Kostermans (Cheng & Hu) C. Y. Yu ~Colona sinica Hu ~Sloanea tomentosa (Bentham) Rehder & Wilson ~Ptezygota alata (Roxburgh) R. Brown Zou Shou-qing, a research associate at the Yunnan Insti- * Vatica xishuangbannaensis G. D. Tao 8t J. H. tute of Tropical Botany, Academia Sinica, was exchange Zhang visiting scholar at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard ~Pterospermum acerifolium Willdenow University in 1986. He received a B. A. degree in forestry * Bombax insignis Wallich in 1965 from the Nanjing Institute of Forestry. 8

More about the front cover

The illustration on the front cover of this issue of Amoldia is part of a painting done in China nearly a century and a half ago by a Chinese artist working for the American merchant, Warren Delano (1809-1898), of . Given in 1930 to the Arnold Arboretum by Delano’s son, Frederic Adrian Delano, the painting is one of more than six hundred that the elder Delano commissioned during his two decades or more of residence in China. It depicts a rare Chinese shrub, Aquilaria sinensis (Loureiro) Gilg. The first excerpt printed below describes the paintings and gives details 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 the fruit and flower, some bearing both on the same Library the most unique gift of recent years, to plant. Occasionally two plants are figured on the serve as a memorial to his father Warren Delano, same sheet. 1809-1898, with the purpose of making it "of real value to students."" -Journal of the Arnold Arbore- It consists of six hundred and eleven paintings of tum, Volume 11, Number 2 Chinese fruits, flowers and vegetables, natural (April 1930), pages 131 and size, beautifully executed by native artists on 132. sheets 15" x 19". Some of them are well-known plants that have been introduced into this country such as the Rose, Peony, Chrysanthemum, Camellia, etc., but many of them are very rare. In The Hort[iculturalJ. Soc[ietyJ. of London is in- his presentation letter Mr. Delano writes, "My debted to J[ohn] Reeves for a fine collection of father, Warren Delano, was one of the early Bos- coloured drawings of Chinese plants, executed in ton merchants engaged in the China trade-and his own house under his superintendence by Chi- went there in 1835. He lived in China for more nese draughtsmen. Such drawings first brought us than 20 years, between 1835 and 1866, chiefly in to a knowledge of the Chinese Prime rose..., Den- Canton, Macao and connected with drobium nobile, many of the finest , the house of Russell & Co. During his stay he Chrysanthemums, Azaleas, Moutans, and above endeavored to learn about the products of the all of the Glycine (Wistaria) chinensis, which country and in the 40’s he collected and had drawn plants were subsequently introduced into English by Chinese artists over 500 paintings of the 200 or gardens. In this way was formed that collection of more fruits, flowers and vegetables." authentic drawings of Chinese plants, by far the These paintings are replete with interest, bo- most extensive in Europe, which now forms part of tanical, artistic, and historical. They were appar- the library of the Horticular Society. ently done by various artists with varying degrees A similar collection is now in the British Mu- of skill over a period of years. The paper on which seum. Mr. Carruthers, Report Bot. Dep. Brit. Mus. they were painted is evidently of English manufac- for 1877, states that 654 Chinese drawings of ture, the earliest water-marks being "I. Taylor plants, executed under the superintendence of the 1794" and "E. & P. 1794", and the latest "Ruse & late John Reeves, were presented by Miss Reeves Turners 1832." Between these are various other (his daughter or perhaps grand daughter). dates, many of which bear the name of J. What- man, and in 1828, "J. Whatman, Turkey Mill" -History of European Botanical with design resembling a coat-of-arms. Discoveries in China, by Emil The paintings are exquisitely drawn, in beauti- Bretschneider, Volume 1, ful colors marvelously preserved, with details of pages 25 7 and 258. Transplanting Botany to China: The Cross-Cultural Experience of Chen Huanyong

William j. Haas

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

Chen Huanyong (Woon-Young Chun/1 came ern Asia and northeastern North America to Boston in the autumn of 1915 to study at were closely related. This significantly im- the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University’s plied that the species of one region might museum of living trees. The arboretum, lo- grow well in the other. While Gray’s work cated on a 265-acre site in Jamaica Plain, provided theoretical underpinning for Massachusetts, about five miles from the Sargent’s horticultural interest in East Asia, center of Boston, was set up in 1872 with it was the flourishing of seeds sent to Sargent funding from the trust created by the legacy by Emil Bretschneider (1833-1901), a Russian of New Bedford merchant James Arnold. A physician in Beijing, which gave Sargent the condition of the gift was that the university practical demonstration that plants collected

"establish and support an Arboretum ...* in China would be viable in America.3 which shall contain as far as is practicable, all Sargent began slowly to collect Chinese the trees ... either indigenous or exotic, species; he acquired specimens through Euro- which can be raised in the open air...."Z pean institutions and through a trip of his Trees from Asia were heavily represented at own to China. In 1907 he hired Ernest H. the arboretum, and trees of Chinese origin Wilson (1876-1930) from the British horti- thrived there. The new Chinese student cultural firm Veitch & Sons, to collect for the flourished at the arboretum also. Freshly arboretum in western China. These fabulous graduated from the New York State School of collections from western China made him Forestry at Syracuse University, Chen had and the arboretum world-famous. Later, already spent five years in the Sargent obtained the services of the collector since leaving his native . Now he and ethnologist Joseph F. C. Rock (1884-- would spend four more years in the United 1962).4 The arboretum’s collections of plants States, doing graduate work among the trees from China increased rapidly.5 But it was not at the arboretum. just acquisition of Chinese collections that By the time Chen arrived in 1915, Charles made the arboretum an important center. Sprague Sargent (1841-1927), director of the The study of these collections, especially by arboretum from 1873 until his death, had es- Alfred Rehder (1863-1949), assistant at and tablished the Arnold Arboretum as a center later curator of the arboretum’s herbarium, for the study of Chinese trees. Sargent’s in- also contributed to knowledge of the flora of terest in East Asian species was inspired by China. Asa Gray’s observation that the floras of east- Just as Americans had to travel to European 10

herbaria to study American plants, Chinese Arnold Arboretum botanists like John G. had to come to American and European insti- Jack (1896-1935), an assistant professor of tutions to study Chinese plants. Unless they dendrology (the study of trees) made Hillcrest used the research collections in Western a center for diffusing horticultural knowl- herbaria, Chinese botanists would have had edge by giving lectures there during the to begin work on the flora of their country summer. It was probably on these occasions from scratch. The arboretum had the strong- that Jack developed a friendship with his est collections of Chinese trees in the world. future protege, Chen.9 The friendship must Chen came to Harvard specifically to use that have been heightened by mutual interest in material, explaining that "it would take me a China’s flora; Jack had gone to China in 1905 lifetime of travel to study what I can find out at his own expense to collect specimens for here about Chinese trees in a few years."6 the Arnold Arboretum. 10 Chen’s commitment to forestry as a career Education in the United States, 1909-1919 deepened after his first summer at Hillcrest. It was Marion Case of Weston, Massachu- Chinese students with an ardent desire to setts, who first alerted Chen to the impor- strengthen their country often claimed that tance of the Arnold Arboretum. In 1909, the subject they studied was the one most Case, daughter of a Providence, Rhode Island, crucial to China’s future. In the January 19111 merchant, used land she had inherited to issue of the Chinese Students’ Monthly, the start a small institution in Weston for experi- organ of the Chinese Students’ Alliance, mentation in farming and education. Known Chen explained why "Forestry in China" was as Hillcrest Gardens, it is now the Case Es- important. He vividly described the cancer of tates of the Arnold Arboretum. Chen had deforestation, a scourge which contributed to come from Shanghai to the United States in flood, famine, and unfavorable climate. 1909 and enrolled in courses in forestry and China was once an Eden of luxuriant forests at the Massachusetts Agricul- and crystal streams, but indiscriminate re- tural College in Amherst. In 1910, Case hired moval of trees had laid bare entire provinces. him as her summer assistant. For five sum- Fertile topsoil had been washed from hill- mers between 1910 and 1919, Chen helped sides and carried to the sea. Chen called for Case manage and teach the young boys em- education as the antidote to "the poison of ployed at Hillcrest. The boys liked Chen popular ignorance." Schools should be estab- because, in her view, the "quiet courteous lished to train men for a forest service. Using ways he had inherited from his Spanish the advantages of Western science, a govern- mother appealed to them."7 ment bureau cooperating with the people Chen’s success in the Hillcrest job may could succeed in reforestation. Chinese stu- have been as much due to his father’s influ- dents should arouse national interest in a ence as to his mother’s. Chen’s parents proba- movement for reforestation.ll bly met while his father was in Cuba as a It was an exciting time for Chinese stu- diplomatic representative of the Qing court. dents everywhere. In October 1911, the Xin- The couple had fourteen children; Chen, the hai revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty; thirteenth, was born in Hong Kong in 1890. by 1912 there was a new Chinese republic. Some time later, the family moved to Shang- Chen’s ambition in forestry required more hai, where Chen’s father taught English at the specialized training. In 1912 he transferred Thomas Hanbury School, a boys’ school from the Massachusetts Agricultural College named after the British businessman who to the New York State School of Forestry at financed it. Chen’s summer work at Hillcrest Syracuse University. The school had excel- was similar to what his father did towards the lent facilities, including a forestry summer end of his career.8 camp in the Catskill Mountains, which Chen 11I

attended in 1914.12 "unbroken save by the murmur of low-dron- While completing his undergraduate train- ing prayers and the tinkles of temple bells."14 ing at Syracuse, Chen became active in the In "Bitter Strength"-a translation of the Chinese Students’ Alliance, which had chap- word coolie [kuli]-Chen used fiction to cry ters throughout the United States. Chen was out against Westerners’ mistreatment of the a delegate to the alliance’s ninth annual con- Chinese. A rickshaw coolie in the British ference, held at Cornell University in Ithaca colony of Hong Kong spends a day striving to during the last week of August 1913. Dele- earn money for his family. By day’s end, the gates participated in vocational conferences, weakened coolie has obtained just the athletics, literary events, entertainments, a amount he needs to bring home to his aged banquet, a picnic, and elections; Chen was mother. A British infantryman demands to be elected to the Chinese Students’ Monthly’s taken to the barracks where he is late for his English Editorial Board. Delegates also dem- return. The coolie pleads exhaustion, but the onstrated their concern with China’s interna- half-drunk soldier tells him to "run like the tional relations. There was anxiety in China devil or have his head broken." On the way, because the "consortium," an international the coolie’s muscles fail and he drops the cart. banking syndicate, was forcing loans on Cursing, the infantryman’s "right hand shot China and monopolizing its loan business. In out, and the dirk sank deeply into the helpless 1910, the consortium was a four-power affair, body." The coolie’s corpse is disposed of in Britain, France, Germany, and the United the waters off the bund.’s States; in 1912, six-power: Japan and Russia After graduating the forestry school at were added. At Ithaca, students’ alliance Syracuse in 1915, Chen enrolled at Harvard’s delegates staged a mock parliament, a scaled- Bussey Institution for Research in Applied down version of the Chinese house of repre- Biology. Rather than become a forester, he sentatives in session. The main business was was going to become a dendrologist. The an impeachment hearing for the premier be- Arnold Arboretum did not officially offer cause he had concluded the "Five Power instruction, but students could arrange to loan."’3 take courses with John Jack and work at the Over the next year Chen revealed growing arboretum by registering at the Bussey. That distress over the vagaries of cross-cultural year, another Chinese student, Qian Songshu experience and contact. He wrote two short (S. S. Chien, 1883-1965), also registered at the stories on this theme for the Chinese Stu- Bussey to work with Jack. While studying at dents’ Monthly. The fictional "East Is East the arboretum, Qian published in the New and West Is West" was most likely autobio- England Botanical Club’s journal, Rhodora. graphical. A young Shanghai man embarks For this publication, Chen later celebrated on a voyage to study in the United States, him as "the first Chinese botanist to describe leaving behind his fiancee, Miss Mei, "beau- new species of plants."’6 The following year, tiful, not in the striking beauty of the Ameri- Chen and Qian were joined at the arboretum can girl, but in that serene and saintly loveli- by yet another Chinese student, Zhong Xin- " ness so characteristic of the girls of the East." xuan (H. H. Chung/." John Jack was good at Attending a small New England college, the teaching, and all his students adored him. He young man adopts Western styles and habits. went out of his way to help them, often He meets a Chinese woman, a graduate of paying their wages for work at the arboretum Wellesley College more suited to his newly out of his own pocket or arranging Harvard Americanized tastes. He marries her and does loans for them. He arranged a loan for Chen not return to China. Back in China, Miss at the beginning of 1916. Mei’s faith and hope are crushed by the deser- Chen was more adventurous than most of tion. She goes to live in a nunnery, its silence the dozen or so Chinese pursuing graduate 12

studies in various Harvard departments. arboretum and put it in a larger context; Unlike his compatriots, who resided in Chinese had been coming to America to graduate dormitories or near school, Chen study for twenty-five years. At present there lived first on St. Botolph Street and later on were 1,600 other Chinese studying in Amer- Gainsborough Street, in an "artsy" section of ica, most intending their studies to be of Boston’s Back Bay-only a stone’s throw direct benefit to China.19 from the Massachusetts Horticultural Soci- During every semester of his four years at ety, Symphony Hall, and the New England Harvard, Chen registered for John Jack’s for- Conservatory of Music.’8 During his third estry courses. His studies went well and in year in Boston, the Boston Globe interviewed the spring of his final year, 1919, he received the cosmopolitan Chen, the student who had one of Harvard’s Sheldon Travelling Fellow- come "From China to Boston to Study Chi- ships to collect plants in southern China. The nese Trees." Chen explained his work at the day 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 summer of 1917. Photograph from the Archives of the Arnold Arboretum. 13

the talented student into his office and gruffly became founding president of Canton Chris- advised him: "Chen, your botanical career is tian College in 1893. Later renamed Lingnan just commencing." Sargent told him to go University, the College was modeled on the home and familiarize himself with plants in Presbyterian-founded Protestant Syrian Col- the field; unexplored Hainan Island would be lege, now known as the American University best. The Sheldon Fellowship would cover of Beirut. Henry visited Hainan in the 1880s the work for a year.2° Everything was set until and paid special attention to the aborigines; the University bursar made an unusual he found some young aborigine women demand: part of Chen’s fellowship had to be "quite handsome in spite of the blue lines turned over for immediate repayment of the tattooed over their faces."23 Harvard loan that John Jack had arranged. With "the foolhardiness of young man- Fortunately, the dean of the Bussey Institu- hood" and a handbook for explorers, Chen tion, entomologist William Morton Wheeler, went to Hainan alone. Malaria was a con- interceded on Chen’s behalf. Wheeler was stant threat, and after nine months with the conducting his own world-wide taxonomic aborigines, he was stricken. His fever study of (this later included ants of reached 105 degrees, his body was covered China) and recognized the value of having with sores caused by leeches and malnutri- Chen collect Chinese plants for the arbore- tion, and his left hand swelled "to the size and tum.2’ color of a boxing glove." He was carried out of Since Sargent wished to expand his pro- central Hainan’s Five Finger Mountains on a gram for acquiring Chinese specimens, he stretcher. arranged to use Chinese students trained at Chen recuperated in Nanjing and packed the arboretum as collectors after they re- his collections of plants, insects, and reptiles turned to China. Chen Huanyong was the for shipment to Boston. Disaster struck. The first to return to China in this role. The plan shipment burned in a fire at the Shanghai was for Chen to leave for China in September, warehouse of the China Merchants Steam- do fieldwork there for a year and then return ship Navigation Company. At least Chen to the States for a year to study and distribute still had the collections of Hainan material he the material he had collected. Sargent wanted retained in Nanjing. Some time later, a Chen to devote all his energy to collecting commissioner of the Chinese maritime cus- woody plants and seeds, but Jack encouraged toms offered Chen facilities for making col- Chen to broaden his scope to include herba- lections in northwestern Hubei province. In ceous plants and insects. The trip would be 1922, Chen, Qian Songshu, Qin Renchang financed by Chen’s fellowship, subscriptions (R. C. Ching), and "old Yao," a retired collec- for the collection of special material, and sale tor who had assisted Augustine Henry, an of specimens after Chen returned. John Jack Irish physician in the Imperial Chinese Cus- touted the quality of the specimens Chen toms Service, went to Hubei province and would make in an effort to get more financ- collected together. Chen and Qian’s herba- ing. He asked Professor B. L. Robinson to ceous specimens were sent to the Gray Her- purchase material from Chen’s expedition for barium ; Chen’s woody specimens, to the Harvard’s Gray Herbarium.22 Arnold Arboretum. Chen considered this to Located off the South China coast opposite be "partial atonement" for his "Hainan fail- the province of Guangdong, Hainan Island ure."Za was tropical and rough. Westerners had al- ready published memoirs of explorations The Nanjing Years, 1920-1927 there. The first to traverse the island was the Chen began his teaching career in Nanjing in Reverend Benjamin Henry, a Presbyterian 1920. During the first decades of twentieth- missionary from western Pennsylvania who century China two separate educational sys- 14

tems were in place, one run by Chinese, the especially biology. In 1922, this strength led other run by Christian missionaries. At the the Science Society of China to establish its elementary and secondary level, Chinese and biological laboratory in Nanjing, staffed foreign schools were seldom concerned with mainly with Southeastern University fac- each other, but at the college and university ulty. Southeastern botany professor Hu Xian- level, there was competition for faculty and su (H. H. Hu, 1894-1968) became head of the funding. Competition was keenest in Beijing, laboratory’s botany division. Unlike Chen, Guangzhou, and Nanjing, cities having both Hu Xiansu had returned to China for seven Chinese and Christian universities. Chen’s years between finishing his undergraduate first teaching position was at the University degree at the University of California at of Nanking, a Protestant mission school Berkeley in 1916 and starting graduate train- administered by American officers in Nan- ing at Harvard in 1923. When Hu returned to jing and American trustees in New York City. China in 1916 he began teaching at the Nan- The University inculcated its students with jing Higher Normal School, the predecessor Christianity through required attendance at institution of Southeastern University. Chen religious classes and chapel. Chinese faculty felt that it was because of his influence that were integrated into the Christian program Hu decided to study at the Arnold Arbore- by having to lead the weekly Bible study class. tum.’~ When it was Chen’s turn to preach, he chose Hu’s first direct contact with the arboretum "The Beauty of Forests and Poetry" for his was through correspondence with Charles topic. He enchanted the school’s teachers and Sargent. Sending specimens was a standard students without saying a word about the way of contacting eminent botanists. In 1920, Bible. Chen’s sophisticated protest probably Hu sent Sargent a collection of woody speci- coincided with protests from Chinese stu- mens from Jiangxi province in exchange for dents against requirements for religious edu- their identification.29 Just as Chen had done cation. In any case, after Chen took his turn, with the Hubei collections, he sent to the ar- weekly scholarly talks replaced the Bible- boretum, Hu built up research collections at study class.25 Southeastern by attaching Sargent’s identifi- Chen was discontented at the University of cations to an identically numbered duplicate Nanking: "I am Chinese; I don’t like to work set he retained in Nanjing. in a Christian school."26 Before long, he Hu enrolled at the Bussey Institution from switched over to the recently established and September 1923 to June 1925 and took four Chinese-run National Southeastern Univer- forestry courses with John Jack.~° In the same sity, also in Nanjing. Its president, Guo Bing- way he had helped Chen, Jack arranged a wen (P. W. Kuo), the first Chinese to get a university loan for Hu. But Hu could not Ph.D. from Columbia University’s Teachers borrow as much money as Chen had because College, recruited professors from the best of Chen’s Harvard loan had not yet been repaid. the "returned students."2’ Although South- An officer of the university criticized Jack for eastern’s finances were shaky, its superb fac- arranging Chen’s loan, intimating that Jack ulty and Chinese administration made it had "backed up a ’crook’ for scholarships & appealing to the most capable Chinese. Chen other favors from the college." Jack told Chen was not the only Chinese to cross over from that his carelessness "handicaps & jeopard- the University of Nanking to Southeastern. izes my work in the University on behalf of The loss of top-flight faculty caused the Uni- Chinese students. You have made it harder versity of Nanking administration to have for them to get scholarships, loans, & c, espe- hard feelings, feelings that were exacerbated cially upon my recommendation when your as competition for funding also developed. case is remembered, as it is."3’Chastened by The sciences were strong at Southeastern, Jack’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 understood that the university administration saw Chi- nese students at Harvard as a group. It sensi- tized him to the danger of negative Harvard attitudes towards Chinese based on stere- otypes. Hu raised the money to repay the other half of Chen’s loan, "in anxiety of his [Chen’s] error which may cast an ugly shadow upon the character of Chinese students at Harvard...."32 Part of Chen’s problem repaying the Har- vard loan was the disarray in Southeastern’s finances; payment of faculty salaries was often in arrears, sometimes as much as eight months. Despite financial problems, Chen was productive during his years in Nanjing. In 1922, he brought to press his manual, Chi- nese Economic Trees, a project he had started at the Arnold Arboretum. The same year he wrote up a comparison of Chinese and Japa- nese pines for Kexue [Science], the journal of the Science Society of China. Before long he began a study of the genera and species of the laurel family in China that would be pub- lished in the first volume of Contributions from the Biological Laboratory of the Science Society of China. By publishing the Contri- Hu Xiansu (1894-1968), better known as H. H. Hu, a butions in English, Chinese biologists could student of John Jack’s from 1923 to 1925. Photograph address the international scientific commu- from the Archives of the Arnold Arboretum. nity from the pages of a publication of one of their own institutions. Further, through ex- over again. Chen’s work could not but suffer. change of the Contributions, the biological The University of Nanking mentioned the laboratory could build up its library with tragedy in criticisms of Southeastern botany. publications from institutions throughout During the spring of 1924, Southeastern ar- the world. ranged to receive a set of the National Geo- At the end of 1923, disaster struck. The graphic Society collections made by Qin Ren- science building housing the library and the chang, a forestry student working his way natural history collections at Southeastern through the University of Nanking as a teach- burned down. Southeastern’s herbarium was ing assistant at Southeastern University. lost; thousands of specimens painstakingly University of Nanking botanist Albert Stew- mounted on sheets of paper, labelled, and ard attempted to win the set for his herbarium filed had gone up in smoke. What had seem- by undermining confidence in Southeastern. ingly just started had now to be started all His method was to write Elmer Drew Merrill 16

(1876-1956), the preeminent American ex- the specimens.34 He got nowhere with his pert on Chinese plants. Steward knew that complaints. Merrill had his own relationship Merrill, through his connections in Washing- with Chen and was eager to work on Chen’s ton, could influence where the specimens Hainan materia1.35 Nanking’s bid for the set would go. of National Geographic material failed. Merrill had become a leading authority on Botanical work at Southeastern picked up the flora of China during his years as director in 1925. Qin Renchang began full-time work of the Philippines Bureau of Science. His at Southeastern after he graduated the Uni- influence derived from promoting institu- versity of Nanking, and Hu Xiansu returned tional ties, setting up herbaria-he did this for from Harvard. Hu, like Chen, won Charles Lingnan University and the University of Sargent’s confidence while he was at the Nanking-and identifying Chinese speci- Arnold Arboretum. A fund for botanical ex- mens in prodigious quantities with phe- ploration in China was to be set up with Sar- nomenal speed. He determined approxi- gent and Marion Case as two of the trustees. mately 75,000 Chinese specimens from 1914 Hu would oversee the work in Nanjing, to 1929. In 1924, Merrill became dean of the Southeastern being the chief beneficiary. Hu University of California’s College of Agricul- naively mentioned this to John Reisner, dean ture at Berkeley, a position that increased his of the University of Nanking’s College of influence.33 Forestry and Agriculture. When Steward wrote to Merrill in 1924, Reisner lobbied Merrill for help to make there were more herbarium specimens of Nanking the beneficiary instead. "No one in Chinese plants in Western institutions than China is more sympathetic with the aspira- in institutions in China. Steward explained tions of the Chinese than I am," Reisner that it was "a source of regret as well as of explained as he denounced Hu Xiansu, "a inconvenience to botanists working in China strong pro-China individual" enthusiastic that so many fine collections of Chinese about botanical work. Unfortunately, Hu’s plants have been taken completely out of the "enthusiasm has never been able to lead to country." Steward used a progressive argu- practical organization of their [Southeast- ment for a parochial purpose. It had already ern’s] herbarium work which would result in been decided that the National Geographic a usable file of herbarium material." Of specimens would go to an herbarium in course, Reisner brought up the Southeastern China, Southeastern’s herbarium, but Stew- fire. He admitted that there were also collec- ard whittled away at Southeastern. It was tions at the science society’s biological labo- unsafe; their fire the past winter showed this. ratory, collections under the control of Hu The plants that it had were not properly Xiansu, "but they are in the same condition as arranged. "The men in charge of their work botanical plants in Chinese institutions al- have not shown ability, serious interest, or a ways are, unorganized and of no value to spirit of cooperation along this line." He anybody in their present condition." Reisner singled out Chen. The University of Nanking asked Merrill to recommend cooperation had apparently contributed to the financing with the University of Nanking to Sargent.36 of Chen’s 1922 expedition to Hubei. Steward Hu found out about Reisner’s efforts to get claimed that Chen owed him specimens and Sargent’s support and was outraged because was angry that Chen’s "god-father friend Pro- Reisner "always professes friendship and fessor Jack who was to have identified the cooperation with us.... If this is Christian Hainan collection" received the woody spirit, no wonder our young men now en- plants Chen collected in Hubei. Steward felt deavor to spread a national-wide anti-Chris- that John Jack was the source of Arnold Arbo- tianity propaganda."3’ retum pressure for Southeastern to be given After Hu’s return to China in 1925, Hu and 17

Chen began a long and fruitful collaboration notes. Until 1932, most of the Lingnan collec- on their Icones Plantarum Sinicarum, illus- tions sent to Merrill for identification came trations and descriptions of Chinese plants. from Floyd McClure (1879-1970), a graduate The first of five large-format volumes-the of Ohio State University who came to Ling- drawings were life-sized-came out in 1927. nan in 1919. The material McClure sent was Chen and Hu dedicated it to Charles Sargent often sterile (it had, no fruits or flowers), not "through whose deep interest in Chinese accompanied by adequate notes and labels, Botany the knowledge of our ligneous flora and not ample enough for division; this was has been greatly advanced." That same year important in case Merrill needed to send a Chen took a year’s leave from Southeastern to portion of a specimen to a specialist for deter- research the flora of South China. He had an mination. Merrill criticized McClure se- appointment as professor at National Sun verely for the low quality of the study sets he Yatsen University in Guangzhou, but he was receiving. McClure blamed the illiterate spent most of the winter and spring at the coolies he had been sending into the field for Hong Kong Botanical Garden studying Chi- the poor specimens collected. By contrast, nese plants with Qin Renchang. Instead of Merrill was especially pleased with the speci- returning to Southeastern at the end of his mens coming from Chen’s institute. Chen leave, Chen stayed on at Sun Yatsen.38 Hu attributed this to the fact that his "assistants also left Nanjing; he was appointed head of are college graduates, not coolie collectors, botany at the new Fan Memorial Institute of able to observe as well as collect."39 Biology in Beijing. Although there was competition, relations between Protestant Lingnan University and Institution Building in South China, Chinese Sun Yatsen University were not 1927-1937 nearly so strained as those between Nanking Developments at Sun Yatsen were rapid. The and Southeastern. The tension between bota- China Foundation, the organization which nists of the two schools seemed due to Ling- controlled the moneys from the United nan’s sense of having proprietary rights in States’ remission of China’s Boxer War in- South China. Perhaps Lingnan’s desire to demnities, decided to support Chen’s work. control South China botanical exploration In 1928, the foundation funded a new botany came from president James McClure Henry, institute at Sun Yatsen with Chen as head. son of Benjamin Henry, South China explorer The following year the foundation secured and first Lingnan president. James Henry may Chen’s salary by making him a China Foun- have seen Chen as a newcomer to South dation Science Professor. Chen launched an China. Lingnan was certainly threatened by ambitious program of collecting in South how fast Chen was taking hold of the South China while building up the institute’s li- China work. The chairman of the biology brary and herbarium through exchanges, department and editor of the university’s especially with curator Alfred Rehder at the Lingnan Science journal, William Hoffman, Arnold Arboretum and Elmer D. Merrill at was put off by Chen’s unwillingness to accept the University of California. Merrill’s pri- limitations. Chen was more assertive than mary interest was the flora of South China, the typical Chinese scholar, and Hoffman did and he and Chen established a close working not know how to deal with him. No one at relationship. Merrill respected Chen because Lingnan had been wronged by Chen, but of the high quality of his work, and com- Hoffman was suspicious, explaining to Mer- plaints from Lingnan University did not rill that Chen "has pulled off a number of change his feelings. ’crooked’ deals in his relationship with scien- Merrill took the measure of a botanist by tists and scientific institutions of which I am the quality of his specimens and his field aware. "’° 18

According to Chen, the friction was due to Fifth International Botanical Congress met his unwillingness to fall in with Lingnan’s in Cambridge, England. For the first time in plans. After Lingnan obtained a substantial the history of the meeting, there was a sym- grant from the China Foundation, an infor- posium on the flora of China, and for the first mal meeting among Chen, Hoffman, and a time there was attendance by Chinese bota- few of the other Lingnan people was called to nists. The symposium brought together ex- discuss plans for cooperation. Hoffman made perts on China’s flora from Leningrad, Copen- three proposals: that the two institutions hagen, Berlin, Vienna, Florence, Paris, Lon- exchange specimens, divide the territory, and don, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, New York, Nan- not visit the same locations in the same jing, and Guangzhou. Chen participated as season. Exchange of specimens, Chen replied, the representative of the Botanical Institute need not be contingent on Lingnan’s getting a of Sun Yatsen University, the Science Society grant. Chen saw the other proposals as re- of China and the national government of strictions under the mask of cooperation. He China. In his address to the symposium, he explained his position in no uncertain terms: reviewed the development of botany in "I came to Kwangtung [Guangdong] to study China, dividing its history into three phases, the flora of Kwangtung, and ... I intend to go "the period of ancient Chinese research, the any place, any time and as many times as period of early European research, and the " necessary, so long as I find means to do so ... period of modern Chinese research." to accomplish two principal objects-to pub- In the first period, from the first to the lish a good flora of the province, and to gather nineteenth centuries, botanical information and sow seeds of as many rare plants as pos- was compiled and published in herbals, ency- sible in order to save them from certain ex- clopedias, and dictionaries; in the second pe- tinction."4’ riod, beginning in the eighteenth century, During 1930 Chen reached out to the for- European botanical explorers collected plants eign scientific community in China and in China, enriching the herbaria of leading around the world. Chen usually did not pub- botanical institutions in the West-this was lish in the journals of foreign institutions in the material Chen was studying while in China, but in 1930 he published "Forestry Europe; in the third period, Chinese them- and the Conservation of Resources" in the selves were "undertaking a re-examination of Lingnan Science journal. Chen was trying to the vegetation of their own country on a increase awareness among foreigners of one scientific basis." This last period began in of China’s critical problems. Also in 1930, 1916 when Qian Songshu published his spe- Chen’s botany institute started publishing cies of Ranunculus in Rhodora. Chen sum- an English-language journal. Formerly, Sun marized the publications of the other leading Yatsen University’s publications had been in Chinese botanists, Zhong Xinxuan, Hu Xi- Chinese and dealt with problems of only local ansu, Qin Renchang and himself. Of the five, interest; the new journal was intended for only Qin had not been trained at Harvard’s "the scientific world as a whole." Chen and Arnold Arboretum. Chen surveyed the lead- his colleagues accepted Merrill’s advice to ing botanical institutions in North, Central, have a one-word title for ease of citation; they and South China and described the growth of called the journal Sunyatsenia because the libraries and herbaria. Many in his audience University was founded by Dr. Sun, "the already were familiar with the story. Through ’father’ of our republic...."42 exchanges, they had obtained volumes of Chen attended two international scientific Chinese botanists’ publications for their li- congresses in 1930. At the Fourth Pan-Pacific braries and specimens with Chinese bota- Science Congress in Java, Chen gave a paper nists’ labels for their herbaria. Chen appealed on the flora of Guangdong. In August, the for their continued cooperation in the build- 19

ing of reference collections in China.43 edge of the flora of Hainan and Kwangtung Before and after the conference there was [Guangdong]." time for study of the collections at Kew Gar- The 1930s were productive years for Chen, dens in London and discussions with Merrill. and he became accepted as the leading figure At the beginning of 1930, Merrill left the in South China botany by both Chinese and University of California to become director of foreigners. He was held in affectionate regard, the New York Botanical Garden. Merrill had and his personal life was a major item of money for exploration, and Chen proposed a gossip among botanical workers at Sun Yat- botanical expedition to Hainan under the sen, Lingnan, and Kwangsi. In the mid-1930s joint auspices of the New York Botanical Chen started collaborating with his niece, Garden and his own institute.44 The idea de- Chen Shuzhen, known as Faith, on Chinese veloped into a series of expeditions carried trees of the storax family. Chen had already out over the next few years. The European trip married the daughter of a wealthy Hong Kong was a punctuation point in Chen’s career. He family, but the marriage had not produced was now working as an equal with his West- children. When Chen and Faith were seen ern colleagues; he was part of the interna- constantly working together, rumors of a tional botanical community. romance became rife among South China During the 1930s, work on the flora of botanical workers. After Chen’s wife died, he South China steadily expanded under Chen’s remarried, but not Faith. He married his leadership. In 1934, the China Foundation housemaid, who bore him two children, a boy upgraded Chen’s science professorship to a and a girl.46 research professorship so that Chen could co- ordinate botanical work in Guangdong and The War Years, 1937-1945 Guangxi provinces. The foundation and the Botany in China and Chen’s career developed Guangxi provincial government provided swiftly until the outbreak of war with Japan funds to organize the Research Institute of in 1937. The country was shocked when Japa- Botany at the University of Kwangsi (Guang- nese troops invaded the capital in Nanjing, xi), with Chen as head. The institute used the looting and raping with fierce savagery. Chen building of the former British consulate in worked at the botanical institute in Guang- Wuzhou. The situation at the University of zhou until the city fell to the Japanese in Guangxi was congenial; president Ma Junwu October 1938. Chen later recounted to Mer- was specially interested in biology-he had rill his escape to Hong Kong during the Japa- translated Darwin’s Origin of Species into nese bombing: Chinese-and was sympathetic to Chen’s re- search.°s Bombs fell on the compounds of our Insti- In 1935, Chen’s work and the work of bota- tute.... You suggested removal to Hong Kong in readiness for instant of nists shipment throughout China benefited from the herbarium and library to New York, for Merrill’s change of position from Director of the duration, at your expense.... We the New York Botanical Garden to Adminis- moved somehow. Finally Canton [Guang- was evacuated but I trator of Botanical Collections at Harvard zhou] completely slipped alone into Shameen [Shamian].... University. Now the leading Western expert The Japanese used Germans to search resi- on China’s flora was united with the exten- dences of Shameen for Chinese refugees. sive collections of Chinese at the They came to my hiding place at midnight plants but I tricked the Nazis. When mission Arnold Arboretum and the Herbarium. my Gray failed I made my way by foot to Hong Kongg That same year Chen and Hu Xiansu pub- disguised as a coolie. lished volume four of their Icones Plantarum Sinicarum, dedicated to Merrill "in recogni- Chen and his coworkers resumed operations tion of his signal contribution to the knowl- in the Kowloon section of the British colony 20

as best they could. The China Foundation In 1946, Merrill arranged funding for Chen continued its support, but those funds were to come to the United States to work at not sufficient. Chen’s "sister-in-law mort- Harvard for a year or two. With the criminal gaged her house to keep the Institute run- charges dropped it now seemed possible, but ning." When Chen cabled Merrill for money, the Sun Yatsen University chancellor re- Merrill sent small amounts out of his own quested Chen stay in China, and Chen had income.4’ "no alternative but to comply." Chen worked The Japanese captured Hong Kong on to get his two institutes moving again, but Christmas day, 1941. Japanese soldiers with over the next year he became depressed. No fixed bayonets took possession of the one at the Guangzhou institute was institute’s Kowloon premises. Chen again adequately paid. There was dissatisfaction, successfully obtained sanctuary for the hopelessness, and a loss of will. Chen felt institute’s botanical work. He asked the di- time slipping by. Since the Japanese capitula- rector of education of the Japanese puppet tion, the institute had made no progress. government in Guangdong for permission to Chen told Merrill: "I am only a few months move the botanical collections of Sun Yatsen this side of sixty with nothing much to look University back to Guangzhou. Chen got forward to aside from a lonely old age. I am permission and an appointment as professor utterly tired in body and spirit but goad in the puppet government’s Kwangtung Uni- myself on with feigned optimism." Chen felt versity, which had taken over the Lingnan the ambition for a final spurt of accomplish- University campus. The institute moved ment. He asked the seemingly indefatigable back. Merrill: "Out of your rich life and experience After the Japanese defeat, the Chinese what would you think I must do to get out of Nationalist government charged Chen with this slough of despond?"’9 "cultural collaboration" with the enemy Chen did not know that Merrill had spared because of his willingness to deal with the his Chinese colleagues news of his own de- puppet government. The popular fervor sur- spondency. Merrill resigned the directorship rounding the war-criminal trials produced of the Arnold Arboretum in June 1946 over a hysterical accusations. Chen had gone controversy about the use of the arboretum’s against the Chinese tradition of absolutely endowment, an endowment that he was opposing the enemy; now his own enemies largely responsible for building up. Merrill had an opportunity to attack him. An investi- stressed to contributors that their gifts would gating committee of the Ministry of Educa- only be used for arboretum purposes and used tion and representatives of a group of profes- the funds to augment the living collections of sors and staff of Sun Yatsen University the arboretum as rapidly as possible. He was claimed that Chen worked for the Japanese criticized for obtaining more material than puppet government as director of the "Bureau the arboretum could digest. The Harvard of International Propaganda." Chen got a law- administration promoted a plan that would yer, the same Sun Yatsen University law use the arboretum’s endowment for botany professor appointed to defend the Com- work in general at Harvard. Merrill fought mander of Japanese forces in South China, the plan, maintaining that he was following and solicited letters from Merrill and other the indenture of 1872 to establish and support colleagues attesting to the value of his actions an arboretum "which shall contain as far as is to save the herbarium. Since there was no practicable, all trees and shrubs ’whether Bureau of International Propaganda, and indigenous or exotic, which can be raised in since Chen’s actions regarding the institute’s the open air...."’ The new plan would wreck collections seemed justified, the charges the great heritage of Charles Sargent. Merrill were lost the battle with and he lost his quashed.°~ . Harvard, 21

Professor Chen Huanyong, founder and first director of the South China Botanical Institute in Canton. Photograph courtesy 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.~° and suspension of work at the Fan Memorial In June of 1949, Chen wrote to Merrill of his Institute of Biology while it was being trans- desperate attempts to save the institute in ferred to the academy’s control. Hu hoped the Guangxi as the South China situation be- institute could return to normal operations came tense.5’ It was the last time Merrill when the new arrangements were finalized. heard from Chen. The revolution under the Hu had not heard from Chen, but explained leadership of the Chinese Communist Party that "Canton [Guangzhou] has been ’liber- was successful. Science in China would be ated,"’ and he trusted that Chen was "doing completely reorganized. well, as the present regime professes a high esteem to natural science and to scientists."Sz Science in the People’s Republic, It was not until 1954, that Chen’s institute at 1949-1971 Sun Yatsen University was also placed under On 1 November 1949, the new Chinese Acad- the auspices of the Academy of Sciences and emy of Sciences was established and rapidly given a new name, South China Institute of began absorbing scientific research institutes Botany.~ in the Beijing area. In late November, Hu In September 1954, 1,200 delegates as- Xiansu wrote to Merrill about the troubles sembled in Beijing for the First National 22

People’s Congress, the meeting which ap- boriculture and Lysenko’s genetics entered proved the constitution of the People’s Re- Chinese biology. A heated controversy devel- public of China. Chen and fellow botanists oped between the supporters of Morganist Qian Songshu and Qin Renchang were among (American) genetics and Lysenkoist (Soviet) the scientists who participated. On the after- genetics. Although Hu Xiansu’s work did not noon of the fifteenth in Huai Ren Hall, Chair- bear on genetics, he involved himself in the man Mao Zedong opened the conference, his debate as a matter of principle.~ Chen steered remarks punctuated by the delegates thun- clear of this trouble. derous applause. Along with general exhor- Through the 1950s and early 1960s, Chen tations, Chairman Mao urged the people to kept publishing. Before liberation his work "do their best to learn from the advanced ex- was mostly written in English; after libera- perience of the Soviet Union...."54 During the tion he wrote only in Chinese. This did not sessions, many delegates made speeches. The represent a total withdrawal from interna- participating scientists, almost all trained in tional botany; descriptions of new species and the West, must have squirmed in their seats higher groups included the Latin descriptions when chemist Hou Debang, vice chairman of required by international rules. Other col- the All-China Federation of Scientific Socie- leagues also moved to the new pattern of ties and renowned for his research on soda language use. Hu Xiansu did not make the manufacture, gave his speech. Hou was a shift as rapidly as Chen, but by 1958 he also no graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of longer wrote in anything but Chinese. This Technology, Pratt Institute, and Columbia change was no doubt healthy for the develop- University. He prefaced his remarks by con- ment of Chinese botany, but the abrupt tran- fessing. "I am a person who has most deeply sition served to further isolate Chinese bota- received American imperialist education, a nists and their colleagues in the West from person who received the severe poison of each other. English and American capitalist education." China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revo- During the anti-Japanese war, Hou supported lution began in 1966. In most areas, scientific Western science; after liberation he turned to work came to a halt. During the anti-Japanese Soviet science. Other scientists gave war, there had been research activity. Now speeches: geologist Li Siguang, engineer Mao there was no research, no writing. Many sci- Yisheng, mathematician Hua Luogeng, and entists suffered deprivations and indignities. Minister of Forestry Liang Xi.ss At one ses- The few biologists permitted to read books sion, biologists including Chen, Qian Song- considered themselves fortunate in the ex- shu and Qin Renchang proposed that each treme. China, at war with herself, suppressed province be required to designate a forest her scientists. Because Chen had exchanged preserve to protect wild vegetation used in botanical specimens and literature with for- scientific research. The State Council ap- eign research institutions, he was accused of proved their proposal.ss having illicit relations with foreign countries The same year as the National People’s (litong waiguo) and of being a cultural traitor Congress, Chen published a paper on the (wenhua hanjian). Severe persecution broke characteristics of Soviet science as under- him in body and mind. By the end of 1970 he stood through its research on the bark of was eighty-one years old and severely ill. He Eucommia (duzhong) .,17 The following year, would not live to see the end of the cultural 1955, Chen was made a member of the Chi- revolution, nor would he live to see relations nese Academy of Sciences. As China increas- with the United States reestablished. ingly turned towards the Soviet Union, ideas The miseries of the Cultural Revolution from Pavlov’s psychology and physiology, reached their high point in 1971. Scientists Lepeshinskaia’s cell biology, Michurin’s ar- under attack had the added anguish of seeing 23

their families suffer as well. Cultural Revolu- 5. This can be seen by following the annual reports for tion followed Chen into the arboretum’s herbarium in the Journal of the politics Guang- Arnold Arboretum. zhou’s Sand River Hospital, where he lay terminally ill. At the beginning of January 6. A. J. Philpott, "Comes From China to Boston to Study Chinese Trees," Boston 25 November a certain came to extend his Globe, 1917, 1971, professor page 25. regards. It was reported that Chen said, "I 7. Li "Mianhuai nuli firmly trust the party; I firmly trust the Shugang, jiaohui, pandeng" [Recall the teaching, work hard to climb], Guangdongshengg I trust party’s policies; firmly Chairman zhiwuxuehui huikan, Volume 2 (1985~, page 126; Mao’s line." He died a few weeks later.59 Marion Roby Case, The Second Summer at Hillcrest Farm (Weston, Massachusetts, 1911), page 6. Endnotes 8. Information on Chen’s early years is sparse and unre- 1. "Chen is the in Huanyong" equivalent hanyu , liable. I have drawn mostly on a few lines in Chen the official romanization of the of People’s Republic Fenghuai et al., "Jinian woguo jiechu zhiwuxuejia China, for Woon-Young Chun, Woon-Yung Chun, or Chen Huanyong xiansheng" [Commemorating W. Y. Chun, the various spellings Chen used for his China’s outstanding botanist, Chen Huanyong"], name on publications or correspondence not in the Guangdongsheng zhiwuxuehui huikan, Number 2 . (1985), page 112. A. J. Philpott, "Comes From China A bibliography of Chen’s scientific works can be to Boston to Study Chinese Trees," mentions father compiled from Elmer Drew Merrill and Egbert H. Chen’s job at the Hanbury School. For information A Eastern Asiatic Walker, Bibliography of Botany on the Hanbury School, see N. Gist Gee, editor, The (Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts: Amold Arboretum, Educational Directory for China (no place: Educa- and H. A 1938), pages 79, 198, 318; Egbert Walker, tional Association of China, 1905), Appendix C, page Bibliography of Eastern Asiatic Botany Supplementt 34; Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo 1, (Washington, D. C.: American Institute of Biologi- fanyishi, Jindai laihua waiguo renming cidian [Dic- cal and and Sciences, 1960), pages 42, 48, 49, 226; tionary of foreigners who came to China in the Zhongguo zhiwuxue hui [Chinese Botanical Soci- modem period] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue zhiwuxue wenxian mulu ety], editor, Zhongguo chubanshe, 1981), page 189. [bibliography of Chinese botany] (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1985), Volume 1, pages 68 and 69, 373; 9. Sheila Geary, "The History of the Case Estates" Volume 2, page 829. (unpublished manuscript, 1981), pages 3 and 4. 2. Charles Sprague Sargent, "The First Fifty Years of the 10. John G. Jack, "The Arnold Arboretum: Some Per- Amold Arboretum," Journal of the Arnold Arbore- sonal Notes," Chronica Botanica, Volume 12, tum, Volume 3, Number 3 (January 1922), pages 127 Numbers 4 to 6 (1948 and 1949), page 187. and 129. 11. Woon Young Chun [Chen Huanyong], "Forestry in 3. For a historical summary of the literature on the China," Chinese Students’ Monthly, Volume 6, similarity between the floras of eastern Asia and Number 3 (10 January 1911), pages 274 to 276. eastern North America, see Li Floristic Re- Hui-lin, 12. New York State at Between Eastern Asia and Eastern North College of Forestry Syracuse lationships News 19 America (Philadelphia: American Philosophical University, Letter, August 1914, page [5]. Society, 1971), reprinted from Transactions of the 13. Woon Yung Chun, "The Ithaca Conference," Chi- American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol- nese Students’ Monthly, Volume 9, Number 1 (10 ume 42 372 and D. E. (1952), pages and 373, Boufford November 1913), pages 59 to 63. For the consortium, and S. A. Spongberg, "Eastem Asia-Eastem North see Roberta Allbert Dayer, Bankers and Diplomats American Phytogeographical Relationships-A His- in China 1917-1925 (London: Frank Cass and Com- from to tory the Time of Linnaeus the Twentieth pany, 1981), page 25. Century, Anna7s of the Missouri Botanical Garden, " Volume 70, Number 3 (1983), pages 423 to 439. For 14. Woon Yung Chun, "East Is East and West Is West," Gray’s work in this area, see A. Hunter Dupree, Asa Chinese Students’ Monthly, Volume 9, Number 6 Gray (Cambridge: , 1959), /10 April 1914), pages 491 to 493. Chapter 13. A summary of Bretschneider’s shipment 15. Woon Yung "Bitter Chinese Stu- of seeds to Sargent is contained in Bretschneider to Chun, Strength," Arnold Arboretum dents’ Monthly, Volume 9, Number 8 ( 10 June 1914), Sargent 9/25/1893, Archives, 602 and 603. Harvard University. pages 16. "Recent in 4. See B. Charles and Woon-young Chun, developments sys- Stephanne Sutton, Sprague Sargent tematic in in: the Arnold Arboretum Harvard Univer- botany China," Fifth International (Cambridge: Botanical Congress, sity Press, 1970), Chapters 8 to 10. Report of Proceedings (Cam- bridge : Cambridge University Press, 1931), page 524; 24

Chien Sung-shu [Qian Songshu], "Two Asiatic Allies pages 201 to 203 (1982). of Ranunculus pensylvanicus," Rhodora, Volume 27. On Guo’s recruitment see 18, Number 213 (September 1916), pages 189 and activity, Barry Keenan, 190. The Dewey Experiment in China: Educational Re- form and Political Power in the Early Republic 17. For information on Qian Songshu and Zhong (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), pages Xinxuan’s careers at Harvard, see their respective 56 and 57. For a biography of Guo, see Biographical registration cards, UA V 161.272.5 and UA V 252.- Dictionary of Republican China, Volume 2, pages 276, Harvard University Archives. For a biography of 276 and 277 (1968). Qian, see Zou Anshou, "Qian Songshu," in: Tan Jia- zhen, editor, Zhongguo xiandai shengwuxuejia 28. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 1/25/47, Ar- zhuan [Biographies of modem Chinese biologists] nold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, Harvard Hunan kexue University. For a short biography of Hu Xiansu, see (Changsha: jishu chubanshe, 1986), Yu "Hu in: Tan pages 12 to 20. Dejun, Xiansu," Jiazhen, editor, Zhongguo xiandai shengwwruejia zhuan, pages 70 18. For Chen’s addresses, see his Bussey Institution to 85. Registration and Record Card, UA V 252.276, Har- vard University Archives. 29. Hu Xiansu to C. S. Sargent 12/17/20, Arnold Arbore- tum Chinese Correspondence, Harvard University. 19. A. J. Philpott, "Comes From China to Boston to 30. For information on Hu’s see his Study Chinese Trees," page 25. enrollment, Bussey Institution Registration and Record Card UA V 20. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 1/25/47, Ar- 252.276, Harvard University Archives. nold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, Gray Herbarium, Harvard University. 31. John Jack to Chen Huanyong 5/30/25, Arnold Arbo- retum Chinese Correspondence, Harvard Univer- 21. For Wheeler’s action, see Bursar, Harvard University sity. to John G. Jack 5/23/25, Arnold Arboretum Chinese Harvard Univer- 32. Hu Xiansu to John Jack 10/2/25, Arnold Arboretum Correspondence, Gray Herbarium, Chinese Harvard sity. For Wheeler’s publications on the ants of China, Correspondence, University. see the years 1921, 1923, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1931, and 33. Elmer Drew Merrill, "The Local Resident’s Opportu- 1933 in the bibliography in: Mary Alice Evans and nity for Productive Work in the Biological Sciences,"" Howard William Morton Ensign Evans, Wheeler, Lingnan Science Journal, Volume 7(1929), page 293. Biologist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, See R. Schultes, "Elmer Drew Merrill-An Appre- 1970). ciation," Taxon, Volume 6, Number 4 (May 1957), 89 to 101 for brief overview of Merrill’s career. 22. John Jack to B. L. Robinson, 7/1/19, Gray Herbarium pages , University. 34. Albert N. Steward to Elmer D. Merrill, 6/21/24, Herbarium, of 23. Benjamin C. Henry, Ling-Nam or Interior Views of University California, Berkeley. Southern in the Hith- China, Including Exploiations 35. Elmer D. Merrill to Chen Huanyong, 1/15/24, Her- erto Untraversed Island of Hainan (London: S. W. barium, University of Califomia, Berkeley. Partridge and Company, 1886), page 383. 36. John H. Reisner to Elmer D. Merrill, 11/2/25, Her- 24. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 1/25/47, Ar- barium, University of Califomia, Berkeley. Reisner nold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, Gray also lobbied Comell Professor Harry H. Love; see Harvard Herbarium, University. Reisner and T. S. Kuo to Love, 10/20/25, Herbarium, 25. Two Chinese Muslims quit the University of Nan- University of California, Berkeley. rather than submit to the king religion requirements; 37. Hu Xiansu to John Jack 9/30/26, Arnold Arboretum see Jessie Gregory Lutz, China and the Christian Chinese Correspondence, Harvard University. Colleges, 1850-1950 (Ithaca: Comell University Press, 1971, page 92). Chen Fenghuai et al., "Jinian 38. Qin Renchang to Elmer D. Merrill, 6/29/27, 11/2/27, woguo jiechu zhiwuxuejia Chen Huanyong xiansh- Herbarium, University of California, Berkeley. eng," page 114. 39. Elmer D. Merrill to Floyd A. McClure, 1/14/29; 26. Interview with Chen Fenghuai, South China Insti- McClure to Merrill, 1/25/29; Chen Huanyong to tute of Botany, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 4/5/86. Merrill, 1/22/29, Herbarium, University of Califor- Professor Chen Fenghuai was Chen Huanyong’s nia, Berkeley. student at the University of Nanking. After Chen 40. William E. Hoffman to Elmer D. switched to Southeastern Merrill, 3/14/29, Huanyong University, of Chen Fenghuai followed him there. For a short biog- Herbarium, University California, Berkeley. Chen see ci- raphy of Fenghuai, Zhongguo kexuejia 41. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 7/22/29, Her- than [Dictionary of Chinese scientists], Volume 1, barium, University of Califomia, Berkeley. 25

42. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 11/22/29, 53. Zhongguo kexueyuan bangongting, editor, Zhong- Herbarium, University of California, Berkeley; P. F. guo kexueyuan: jieshao [The Chinese Academy of Shen, "Forward," Sunyatsenia, Volume 1, Number 1 Sciences: an introduction] (Beijing: Kexue Chuban- (June 1930), no page number. Merrill had also influ- she, 1986), page 239. enced Academia Sinica’s Metropolitan Museum of 54. For a of the see Natural History to adopt a one-word title for its description delegates attending, China Mainland Press Number 884 and contributions, Sinensia; see Chien Tien-ho [Qian Survey of (8 Tianhe], "Preface," Sinensia, Volume 1, Number 1 9 September 1954), pages 16 and 17; a translation of Chairman Mao’s is in: China Main- (August 1929), no page number. speech Survey of land Press, Number 889 (16 September 1954), pages 43. Chun Woon-yung, "Recent developments in system- 1 and 2. atic botany in China," in: Fifth International Botanical Congress, Report of Proceedings (Cam- 55. "Hou Debang daibiao de fayan" [Delegate Hou bridge : Cambridge University Press, 1931 pages 524 Debang’s speech], Renmin ribao [People’s Daily], 27 4. For summaries of the re- to 528. For a brief description of the Fifth Intema- September 1984, page marks of Hua and see Hsinhua News tional Botanical Congress, see A.B. Rendle, "A short Li, Mao, Liang, history of the International Botanical Congresses," Agency, Daily News Release, Number 1746 (25 and 258. For Chronica Botanica, Volume 1 /1935[, pages 39 and September 1954), pages 246, 247, 257, 40. biographies of Hou Debang and Hua Luogeng, see Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, Vol- 44. Elmer D. Merrill to Chen Huanyong, 12/24/30; ume 2 (1968), pages 84 to 86,185 to 187; for Li Siguang Chen to Merrill, 1/15/31, Herbarium, University of and Liang Xi, see Donald W. Klein and Anne B. Clark, Califomia, Berkeley. Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism 1921-1965, Volume 1 (Cambridge: Harvard Univer- 45. For a brief of the see W. Y. description Institute, sity Press, 1971), pages 522 to 524, 543 and 544. Chyne, Handbook of Cultural Institutions in China (Taipei: Ch’eng-wen Publishing Co., 1967), page 227. 56. "Chen Huanyong," Zhongguo ke~cuejia cidian, Volume 2 (1983), page 205. 46. Interview with Hu Shiu-ying [Hu Xiuying], Harvard University Herbaria, Harvard University, 8 March 57. Chen Huanyong, "Cong duzhong de yanjiu lai renshi 1988. Dr. Hu, a botany student at Lingnan University Sulian kexue de tedian" [Study of the bark of Eu- during the 1930s, reports these "facts" of Chen’s commia to understand characteristics of Soviet personal life as common knowledge among South science"], Kexue Tongbao, 1954, Number 8, page 22. China botanists. 58. For Hu Xiansu’s position, see the translation of 47. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill 1/25/47, Arnold some of his remarks at the 1956 genetics symposium Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, Harvard Uni- at Qindao in: Laurence Schneider, editor, Lysen- versity. koism in China: Proceedings of the 1956 Qingdao Genetics Symposium (Armonk, New York: M. E. 48. Chen to Elmer D. Merrill Huanyong 1/15/47, 3/5/ 21 to for a full Arnold Arboretum Chinese Sharpe, Inc., 1986), pages 24; transcript 47, Correspondence, of the see Li Peishan et Bai Harvard symposium, al., jia zhengg University. ming fazhan kexue de bi you zhi lu: 1956 nian 8 yue zuotanhui a hundred 49. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 9/29/48, Qingdao yichuanxue jishi [Let Arnold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, Har- schools contend-the only way to develop science: a vard University. record of the August 1956 Qingdao Genetics Confer- ence] (Beijing: Shangwu ymshuguan, 1985). 50. Elmer D. Merrill, "Memorandum to Dr. P. C. Chen et zhiwu- Mangelsdorf," 5/20/46; Augusta S. Merrill to Rich- 59. Fenghuai al., "Jinian woguo jiechu ard A. Howard, 10/29/46, Archives, New York Bo- xuejia Chen Huanyong xiansheng," page 117. tanical Garden. Merrill mentions his resignation of the Arnold Arboretum directorship on 1 June 1946 in Elmer Drew Merrill to Dean Paul H. Buck, 2/12/47, Arnold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, Har- vard University. William J. Haas is a graduate student in the History of Science Program, Harvard University. 51. Chen Huanyong to Elmer D. Merrill, 6/20/49, Ar- nold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, Harvard University. 52. Hu Xiansu to Elmer D. Merrill, 24/11/49, Amold Arboretum Chinese Correspondence, Harvard Uni- versity. Forestry in Fujian Province, People’s Republic of China, during the Cultural Revolution

Richard B. Primack

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

Fujian (Fukien) Province is situated on the nese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) and Chi- coast of central China, opposite Taiwan. nese pine (Pinus massoniana Lamb), regener- Until recently it was closed to foreigners, and ate very well. The Chinese pine may form even today special permission is needed to almost pure stands, particularly on dry sites. visit anything other than a few large coastal The Chinese fir grows best in moist sites, cities such as Fuzhou (Foochow) and Ximen often in association with other species. This (Amoy). In January 1986 I made a two-week ecological disclimax of has been used trip to Fujian to visit my wife Margaret’s by foresters to maximize wood production ei- relatives and to give lectures at the Fujian For- ther by manipulating the forest or by planting estry College. The visit provided an opportu- the seedlings. nity to evaluate the ecological status of a part Margaret and I were met at the Fuzhou of China rarely visited by foreign scientists. airport by her relatives, who are peasants in During the visit I learned about the devasta- the rural Minqing District. As we drove tion of Fujian’s forests during the Cultural through the hill country from the airport to Revolution (1966-1976) and the govern- their home district, a distance of roughly 120 ment’s response to rebuild the forests after kilometers, we did not see any mature forests. 1976. The hillsides were covered with grass, low Lying just north of the Tropics, Fujian en- shrubs, and ferns. Many hillsides were cov- joys a subtropical climate. Most rain comes in ered with plantations of small trees of pine the spring, and frosts are light except in the and Chinese fir. Most of these trees looked to mountains. The maj or fruit tree is the orange, be less than ten years old. Arriving at the large lychees and longans being grown in southern valley of my in-laws’ village, we could see and coastal areas. Most of the province is grasses (mostly Miscanthus sinensis and Mis- hilly, with some beautiful scenic areas, such canthus floridulus/, ferns (mostly Dicranop- as the famous Wuyi Mountain. Fujian is very teris linearis), and shrubs covering all of the old, the province having been established as a slopes for miles around. Yet from my perspec- political division more than 20,000 years ago, tive it seemed curious that, despite the abun- and is famous for its many historical places, dance of grassland, there didn’t seem to be any superb handicrafts of lacquerware, and the grazing animals on the extensive hill slopes, cultured and industrious nature of its citi- except for an occasional water buffalo. When zens. I questioned my wife’s relatives about the The native forest (evergreen subtropical absence of trees and grazing animals, they forest) has an extremely high diversity of told me that twenty years before the valley woody species. Following disturbance by had been heavily forested. To say the least, I man, two fast-growing native conifers, Chi- was dumfounded at this abundant change in 27

land use in a district that had been settled for by the Red Guard, the youth movement of the thousands of years. Cultural Revolution. The department staff The next week, we travelled for nine hours were told repeatedly that all true knowledge over the hill country to reach the Fujian and power rested with the peasants and that Forestry College in Nanping, in the center of the Forest Department officers were of the the Province. During this entire trip we saw bourgeoisie. The Forest Department staff no mature native forest or large trees-only were urged to organize political groups to extensive plantations of small coniferous formulate forestry ideas consistent with the trees and small stands of naturally regenerat- aims of the Cultural Revolution. The result ing pines. By the time we reached Nanping, I of this political activity was that by 1970 the was full of questions about the absence of officers of the Forest Department had lost all forests. Over the next week, the faculty of the control of the management of the forests. Forestry College described to me how the Planting of trees continued on the regular Fujian forests and the Fujian College were schedule, but supervision of logging com- damaged during the Cultural Revolution. pletely ceased. If the peasants wanted wood, Before the Cultural Revolution began, in then they were not stopped, since the Cul- 1966, there were 2,500,000 hectares of forest, tural Revolution taught that the peasants out of a total of 12,000,000 hectares. About 40 knew best. Unsupervised cutting of trees percent of the forest was warm-temperate or started as a trickle, but soon the people real- subtropical forest. The forest had been man- ized that the Forest Department was not aged for hundreds, possibly even thousands, going to interfere. The peasants’ hunger for of years for sustained yield. Permission to cut wood had been carefully controlled for centu- any tree, even for local use, had to come from ries by the Forest Department. Without this Forest Department officers. The forests con- control, the hunger for wood exploded into a tained large, mature trees of chestnut (Cas- six-year-long orgy of illegal logging. Through- tanopsis species), camphor tree (Cinna- out the province, carefully managed natural momum camphor/, Phc~be namu, and Shima forests and mature plantations were cut superba. Many species in these forests are down and used for furniture, construction, superb hardwoods prized for their use in fur- and fuel. The peasants scrambled to cut as nature. Camphor wood was especially valued much wood as possible because the wood was for boxes because it repelled insects. Large free, and everyone wanted as much as he stands of bamboo forest (Phyllostachys pu- could get. From 1970 until 1976, most of the bescens) are located within the hardwood for- timber trees were cut down in certain areas of est and were actively managed for bamboo Fujian Province. The trees remaining were products. either small or of poor form. While some of The Cultural Revolution was a time of con- the forests were still present, their economic fusion and turmoil in China that lasted from value was drastically reduced. The destruc- 1966 until 1976 (Abelson, 1979). Its osten- tion of the forests was particularly severe in sible purpose was to eliminate capitalist and the southern part of Fujian Province, where bourgeois attitudes from society and to return there was less forest to begin with. The hill- to the original ideals of the communist revo- sides around the big towns had been com- lution. During the Cultural Revolution, lead- pletely forested with Chinese firs and pines in ers of all government departments came 1966, but by 1972 the hills were totally under criticism. The Forest Department was cleared of trees. This same destruction of not exempt, even though its policies were of forests was also occurring, to a greater or such clear benefit to the people. At public lesser degree, throughout China during this meetings the officers of the Forest Depart- period. ment were criticized and publicly humiliated One of the major targets of the Cultural 28

Revolution was the Education Department. Communist Party decided to disband the The Red Guards felt that this department was Forestry College. It was felt that the College full of bourgeois teachers who were corrupt- was worthless because it taught only bour- ing the youth. The Forestry College was geois values. The entire faculty of the College under the supervision of the Education De- and their families were sent out to the coun- partment and was therefore heavily criti- tryside to work at the Forest Department cized. The beginning of the Cultural Revolu- nurseries, where they toiled alongside peas- tion was a time of great uncertainty at the ants producing tree seedlings for planting. Forestry College. No one knew what the During this period the faculty members had Cultural Revolution meant. Fighting broke no idea of how long they would remain in the out in the city of Nanping among the Red countryside or what their fates would be. The Guards and other groups within the Commu- faculty members were treated well by the nist Party. In Nanping, as in the rest of peasants with whom they worked, and the China, the Red Guards gained control of the memories of these times are not entirely un- political structure and began to implement pleasant. In August 1972, with no explana- the policies of the Cultural Revolution. One tion or warning, the faculty members were of their first actions was to burn down a recalled to Nanping to reconstitute the Col- famous Buddhist temple, built in the ninth lege. But any hopes that the College would century, as well as churches and shrines. In return to normal were immediately dashed. the Forestry College, professors began to be The new student body of so-called worker- criticized by forestry students belonging to peasant-soldier students was selected by the the Red Guards. The professors were criti- Communist Party primarily on the basis of cized for their supposed bourgeois attitudes political qualifications. No entrance exami- and for teaching capitalist ideas that were a nations were required of incoming students. betrayal of the peasants. At no time during While many students were well qualified, this period were specific policies of the For- others had received no prior education at all. estry College or the Forest Department criti- The curriculum was rewritten by the stu- cized. During the first four years of the Cul- dents to conform with the views of the Cul- tural Revolution the criticism levelled tural Revolution. Political meetings and dis- against the professors increased in intensity cussions were emphasized in the new cur- and violence. At first, professors were being riculum. Attending class or taking examina- paraded in front of large public gatherings, tions was considered irrelevant. College poli- publicly criticized, and even publicly slapped cies and decisions and student promotions and beaten by the Red Guards. Their families were made by student political groups. The were harassed in the same way. Professors faculty was powerless and could only pas- began to fear for their lives. Confusion sively submit to forces totally beyond its con- reigned at the College. Students were attend- trol. To resist the student political groups ing classes infrequently and were spending would have meant public criticism, through much of their time at political meetings. The physical intimidation had ceased by this city of Na~ping was similarly in chaos. The time. Students "graduated" from the College activities of the Red Guards in the Forestry on the basis of their political views, not their College were led by about six individuals, knowledge of forestry. who were responsible for most of the vio- In 1976, the Gang of Four was overthrown lence. The remaining hundreds of students and the leaders of the Cultural Revolution went along with the policies of the Cultural arrested. At this point, Deng Xiao Ping, the Revolution, in part because they were duped future leader of China, returned to the gov- and in part because they had no choice. ernment and took over the administration of Finally, in April 1970, the leaders of the science and education. The effects of these 29

political developments in Fujian Province been planted with trees during the last were felt gradually. Over a two-year period twenty years. As these forests mature over the province returned to normal and the For- the next thirty years, the timber situation estry College’s curriculum was reestablished. will gradually improve. Plantation forests The leaders of the Forestry College and the will be established on all hillslopes, and Forestry Department regained control of much of the forest will be of good size. their staffs. Students of the College again The importance of forests to the people of showed respect for their teachers. The Red China was reaffirmed recently by the Guard leaders in the Forestry College who People’s Congress, which established a Tree had committed acts of violence were jailed for Planting Day. On March 12 of every year, several years but never tried for their crimes. each individual, no matter where he lives, Those unqualified students who had not must travel to the mountains and plant a tree. studied during their years at the College However, the natural forests that were de- failed their examinations and were returned stroyed can never be regained. The Forest to their villages. Students who had "gradu- Department has recognized the importance ated" from 1972 to 1976 but who were un- of protecting the remaining stands of natural qualified were evaluated and reduced in forest through a special classification: Pro- rank. tected State Forest Reserves. The largest of The Forest Department reasserted its con- these is the 50,000-hectare reserve at scenic trol over forest management, with no resis- Wuyi Mountain. These Forest Reserves and tance from the peasants. The peasants them- the enormous plantings of young trees repre- selves welcomed the return to normality af- sent the continued hope of the Chinese ter the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. people, despite the tragedy of the Cultural Besides, everyone could see how badly the Revolution. This is a lesson for foresters, forests had been damaged. Since 1976, the politicians, and the general public about the Forest Department has vigorously continued dangers of ignoring the realities of forest its policy of planting trees. Two million hec- ecology. tares of forests have been planted since 197G, giving a total projected forest area of References 5,000,000 hectares. About 35 percent of this Abelson, Philip H., 1979. China in transition. Science, forest is native thinned Volume 203, Number 4,380), pages 505 to 508. hardwoods, mostly Dickerman, M. B., D. P. Duncan, C. M. Gallegos, and F. forest or forest. scrubby, regenerating B. Clark, 1981. Forestry today in China: Report of is Roughly 18 percent bamboo forest. The a month’s tour by a team of American foresters. remaining forest is composed of Chinese fir Journal of Forestry, Volume 79, Number 2, pages and pine, most of which is planted and small [i], 71 to 75. in size. There currently is a shortage of timber Hsiung, W.-Y., and F. D. Johnson, 1981. Forests and in China. Journal Volume trees in the province, since almost none of forestry of Forestry, 79, Number 2, pages 76 to 79. the forests are mature. The most planted Kellison, R. C., R. J. Dinus, L. Fins, K. K. Ching, S. L. severe are of the hard- shortages high-quality Krugman, and J. A. Winienski, 1982. Forest tree woods used in furniture manufacture. The improvement in the People’s Republic of China. current burst of economic activity in China Journal of Forestry, Volume 80, Number 10, pages has aggravated the problem by increasing the [i], 638 to 641. demand for construction wood. New build- ings are being built everywhere throughout the cities, towns, and villages of Fujian Prov- ince, and wood is needed. There are several bright notes in this sad Richard B. Primack is on the faculty of Boston Univer- story. At least 3,000,000 hectares of land have sity. INTERVIEW Chinese Botany and the Odyssey of Dr. Shiu-ying Hu

In a brief retrospective interview, a Chinese botanist who remained in the United States, recalls some highpoints of Chinese botany at Harvard over the past several decades

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

In the years when the People’s Republic of they needed in their work, I sent it to them. China was closed to outsiders and foreign That has made many people know that there scientists could not keep up their contacts is a Chinese botanist at Harvard."" with Chinese colleagues or pursue their stud- To go back to the beginning of Dr. Hu’s ies inside the country, the Arnold Arboretum story: was fortunate in having on its staff a botanist, In 1934 Shiu-ying Hu went to Lingnan Dr. Shiu-ying Hu, who could maintain at University in Canton (formerly Canton least a thread of the former association. Christian College) as a graduate student in Dr. Hu had come in 1946 to study with Dr. botany, with an assistantship in the herbar- E. D. Merrill for three years, and she stayed ium. Impressed that every sheet of specimens on to work for twenty-eight more, until her had been identified by "E. D. Merrill," she retirement. She still works in her office every said she wanted to study with this famous day. botanist and asked where he was. She was When Chinese botanists did not dare write told that he was at Harvard and that Harvard to Americans, they could write to her; when "didn’t take girls."" they needed books but could not get Ameri- Just as Shiu-ying Hu got her master’s de- can dollars to buy them, they turned to her. gree, Japan started war with China, and her She provided, at her own expense, the litera- university moved to a safer area, the city of ture they asked for and for several of them Chengtu, where West China Union Univer- paid membership fees in international scien- sity, also a missionary college, became host to tific associations so that they could receive several refugee colleges. publications. To Dr. Hu, this was a way she There, in addition to teaching courses in could serve China. botany, Miss Hu was elected president of the "In Peking, in Canton, in different cities, I International Women’s Club, a circumstance did that for them. While there was no com- instrumental in getting her to America to munication between American botanists and study with Dr. Merrill. Chinese botanists, there was a slight commu- The vice president of the club was a Rad- nication between Chinese botanists and 1!" cliffe graduate, and she sent Miss Hu’s appli- Dr. Hu’s English slips a little when she is cation to her own alma mater. When a fellow- excited, as she was when she related this to ship offer came through, two other American her visitor. "Whenever they needed some lit- friends provided money for Miss Hu’s trans- erature-at that time we didn’t have Xerox portation. (Her salary from the university at machines-I photographed them, or I micro- the time was paid in rice, three bushels a filmed, or some I typed, so whatever material month, a medium of exchange not readily 31

converted into tickets to America.)J charge of the tour]; they just won’t listen to Soon after Dr. Hu graduated from Rad- me.",, cliffe, a vacancy for a trained botanist who Without official sanction, Dr. Hu sent the knew Chinese plants opened up at the Arnold message that she was in Beijing to a botanist Arboretum. "At that time, racial and sexual friend with whom she had corresponded for discrimination was very heavy, so my salary years. The messenger was her nephew, who was about the same as the janitor’s," Dr. Hu found the man in a traditional bathhouse and said with a smile. "Being a Chinese botanist, received only the message, "Go back." Later I had no business staying in America and not that night a girl appeared at Dr. Hu’s hotel working for Chinese botany. But now in Har- room and told her to go to the Institute of vard I was working for Chinese botany, so I Botany the next day. Skipping the tour pro- felt all right."" gram for the day, Dr. Hu went to the institute One of Dr. Hu’s projects in the 1950s was and found a party in her honor, as well as the financed by a grant from a group of Chinese gratifying chance to talk with her Chinese businessmen who, unable to return to Com- colleagues. Further gratification came the munist China, wanted to do something for next day as her plane was leaving. T. T. Yu, their homeland. Her proposal was for a flora Deputy Director of the Institute of Botany of China, and as the first step she completed and a former student of H. H. Hu, came with an index to the flora in card-catalog form. two other botanists to say, "Please bear our "Many people come and use my file, and greetings to botanists elsewhere."" that’s one of the Arboretum’s working tools In 1977, after Mao died, T. T. Yu asked Dr. in research on Chinese plants," she said. Hu to go to China and work with young The second step would have been to pub- Chinese botanists. She went the following lish the index, but administrative and finan- year lecturing and giving intensive courses cial changes intervened, and only two plant in Beijing, Lingnan, , and Shang- families were published, the Composite and hai. the Orchidaceae. Dr. Hu made her last trip to China in 1984, "That desire to work on the flora of China when she was the keynote speaker at an was never dead," Dr. Hu said, "but I became international symposium in Hong Kong on old, and I said, ’If I can’t finish the flora of this Chinese medicinal-plant research and went big area, I could work on the flora of a smaller on to Canton to give ten lectures. She was area. made an honorary professor at South China To this end, she went to Hong Kong six Agricultural University in a ceremony at- times between 1968 and 1975 at the invita- tended by the governor of the province and tion of the Chinese university there, and other officials. A second honor came to her in collected specimens while teaching two her own province, Kiangsu, where she was courses. While in Hong Kong in 1975, a tour made an advisor of the botanical institute. was organized for faculty members to see sci- She then travelled to Tibet and , ence, education, and technology in the "... and I went to places that no other foreign People’s Republic of China. With great diffi- botanists were allowed to go. So I have in my culty because of her American passport, Dr. file material to write on the frontier of Chi- Hu obtained the necessary permit to go. nese botany"-both the physical frontier and "Mao Tse-tung was still alive. No Chinese the metaphorical one, she explained. botanist was allowed to see any foreign bota- Dr. Hu is at present writing articles on nist." Dr. Hu told her story dramatically. Chinese food plants and on Chinese medici- "But I want to see Chinese botanists. How nal plants introduced into America as orna- can I do it? If only I can let them know I’m in mental plants and weeds. "Seven hundred of Beijing, I know they will see me, because they them," she exclaimed. "And I had such a big ~~ asked me to do so much. I made many peti- part!" tions [to the Chinese government agent in

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, and lawn plantings

When one sits in a garden with peach trees, courtyard plantings and has come to be flowers, and willows, without a single pine known in the West as the lacebark pine, Pinus in sight, it is like sitting among children and bungeana. It was first described by Joseph women without any venerable man in the Zuccarini (1797-1848) from specimens that vicinity to whom one may look up. Aleksandr von Bunge (1803-1890) had col- -Li Li-weng lected in the temple gardens of Beijing; he was the first Westerner to collect the species. Despite its chauvinism, Li’s assertion does The first live material brought to England was indicate the high regard the Chinese have for a plant that Robert Fortune (1812-1880) had pines in the garden. It also hints at the sym- purchased near Shanghai. An Englishman, bolic system that existed in Li’s time: plants Fortune travelled to China four times be- sited in a garden were not chosen for form, tween 1843 and 1861. His interest in China’s texture, and flower alone, but also as symbols flora enabled him to supply plants to the of abstract thought or representatives of leading horticulturists in London. An engag- human qualities. Pines portrayed hardiness, ing chronicler of the era, Fortune gives vivid strength of character, virtue, or stalwart accounts in his books of plant hunting in friendship in adverse times. These extra- China during the Imperial Dynasty, a period ordinary trees had a stately poise, a silent when "barbarians" were severely limited in wisdom attained only through longevity; their movements and had to resort to subter- their age often was embodied by their gnarled fuge to slip into restricted areas. habits or stout trunks. Along with bamboo In his book Yedo and Peking (1863), For- and the early-flowering apricot, pines formed tune offers an account of a group of lacebark a trio of plants known as "the three friends of pines seen in a cemetery just west of Beijing. the cold season," as they lent respite to winter "Near these Royal tombstones," he wrote, with their evergreen foliage or early flower- ing. I observed a species of Pine-tree, having a peculiar One in has for centuries pine particular habit and most striking appearance. It had a thick been a favorite species for temple gardens and trunk, which rose from the ground to the height of three orfour feet only. At this point, some eight or ten branches sprang out, not branching or bending Two lacebark pines (Pinus bungeana Zuccarini) near in the usual way, but rising perpendicularly, as the royal tombstones in Beijing as illustrated in Robert straight as a larch, to the height of 80 or 100 feet. Fortune’s Yedo and Peking (1863). The bark of the main stem and the secondary 34

He trees 25 meters tall at stems was of a milky-white color, peeling like reported growing that of Arbutus, and the leaves which were chiefly 1,250 meters in elevation, anchored in mud on the top of the tree, were of a lighter green than and sandstone shales. Wilson wrote that "on those of the common Pine. this tree Altogether old trees the bark on the trunk, on the main had a very curious appearance, very symmetrical branches and main is milk- in form, and the different specimens, which evi- exposed roots, dently occupied the most honourable place were white and exfoliates in flakes of irregular as like one another as they could possibly be. contour." In all my wanderings in India, China or Japan, I Joseph Hers, a Belgian who collected in had never seen a pine tree like this one. What northern China the noted the could it be?-Was it new ?-And had I at last found during 1920s, "in rather numbers in the something to reward me for my journey to the far plant growing large north? I went up to a spot where two of these trees district of Lushih (Honan), always at about were standing, like sentinels, one on each side of 1500 meters altitude, clinging to the rocks a grave. They were both covered with cones and, and also south west of Taiyuanfu (Shansi) at were in a fit state for a critical examina- therefore, the same altitude." He recorded that the tion of the species. But although unknown in wood is and a fine Europe, the species is not new. It proved to be one very brittle, despite grain already known under the name of Pinus and nice color, was used by the Chinese only bungeana. I had formerly met with it in a young for coffins. Hers’ account of the lacebark pinee state near and had in the county Shang hae, also told of a brisk trade in wild-collected already introduced it into England, although, of the "white-boned between until now, I had not the slightest idea of its seedlings pine" Honan to other extraordinary appearance when full grown. I Shansi and provinces. would therefore advise those who have young Two accounts detail the tree’s growth in plants in their collection to look carefully after Shansi Province. In 1924, Dr. Harry Smith, a them as the species is doubtless perfectly hardy in botanist from Uppsala University in Sweden, our climate and at some future day, it will form a travelled the southern and central remarkable object in our landscape. One of the through trunks, which I measured at three feet from the areas of the province and reported that large ground, was 12 feet in circumference. areas had been clear-cut and eroded near the more settled areas. Even the cemeteries and Since Fortune’s day, there have been nu- temples did not seem to shelter the flora as in merous accounts of the pine in China, gener- other regions of China. One very important ally descriptions of trees seen at temples in exception existed. A temple in the western Beijing, and always expressing amazement at Mien-shan Mountains at Chieh-Hsiu, had the white, milky bark. Forsythe Sherfessee, a preserved an entire forest of Pinus bungeana, forestry advisor to the Chinese government numbering about 4,000 trees. The lacebark in the 1920s, wrote, "It is one of the most pine was the chief component of this exotic remarkable of all trees on account of the white forest, but Cupressus sp. and Pinus tab- dazzling whiteness of its bark, a feature ulxformis also grew in the dry, stony ground, which renders it wholly and strikingly as did an understory of , Pyrus, unique. In addition, its form is graceful and Lespedeza, Vitex, Vitis, and Rhamnus. I can picturesque, and its foliage unusually deli- only imagine the images a nature photogra- cate."" pher such as Eliot Porter or Ansel Adams Accounts from the wild are much harder to might have produced from a forest of white- find, testifying to the rarity of the plant. Few skinned conifers bedecked with soft, fresh western botanists have seen the species in its snow. In 1929, T. Tang, on an expedition from scattered native range, the provinces of the National University of Peking also col- Hopei, Shansi, Shensi, Kansu, Szechuan, lected in central and southern Shansi. He Hupeh, and Honan. recorded Pinus bungeana from a number of E. H. Wilson found the plant in two districts sites, estimating some trees to be over 100 in western Hupeh but considered it very rare. feet (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 lacebark pine (far right). From the Archives of the Arnold Arbroetum.

Tang records reckless lumbering, with the stood only three inches high. Seed that was lacebark pine being felled and sawed into hand delivered by a delegation of visiting planks. Chinese botanists in 1979 (AA 79-566) germi- Contemporary descriptions of Pinus nated well, but its progeny now stands at only bungeana are somewhat scarce, and its pres- 27 inches high after nine years’s growth in our ent range would seem to be much less than nursery. what it once was, owing mainly to the need Our plants on the grounds also seem small for fuel and lumber. Zhiming Zhang of the for their age in comparison to other species of Beijing Botanical Garden and a former Mercer pine. AA 1285-64-B, a plant almost 25 years Fellow at the Arnold Arboretum, wrote to me old, is a four-stemmed specimen measuring last summer, in response to my inquiries only 10 feet high and 9 feet wide, although it about the plant, that "Pinus bungeana, gener- has put on 4 feet of growth in the last three ally speaking, is widespread in northern years. Our two oldest plants were grown from China. It appears," he continued, seed received from the Lushan Botanic Gar- den in China in 1949. AA 663-49-A is planted in sun on a stems everywhere as a primary urban tree, which can be full rock outcrop. Its nine found in temples, ancient graveyards, emperors’ show mottled bark, and it measures 15 feet palaces, gardens and even streets. It ranges natu- high by 20 feet wide. Its three-stemmed sib- rally about 1200-1850 meters above sea level ling, AA 663-49-B, is better sited and from to Henan Province. I saw a natural perhaps measures 26 feet 30 feet wide. forest of it on the westem Henan boundary with high by Shanxi province at the time when I went there for Clearly, it is not a species for those inclined plant collection in 1981. It grows not as well as toward rapid gratification, but for gardeners that in the city. It grows slowly when it is young who can derive pleasure in planting for future and faster after ten years or more. generations. Although the lacebark pine has been in Our experiences with the cultivation of cultivation in the United States for over one Pinus bungeana at the Arnold Arboretum hundred years, there are relatively few speci- echo those of Mr. Zhang, as the plant grows mens of note, and it is mainly found on old very slowly from seed. Seed sent from estates and in botanic gardens. To my knowl- China and sown in late March of 1986 (AA edge, the premier specimen is in Brookline, 1304-85) germinated heavily after a three- Massachusetts, at "Holm Lea," the old estate month cold stratification, but two years later of 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 in Brookline, Massachusetts. Photographed by the author. 37

the Arnold Arboretum. It is over a century old, stands 65 feet high and 30 feet wide and presents an irregular-oval outline. Its texture is fine, and one can easily see the eleven strongly vertical main trunks. The thickest of these has a 5-foot circumference at breast height, while at ground level, where the trunks 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 background of silvery gray. It gives the effect of a massive abstract mosaic sculpture. This vivid bark, however, presents a mys- tery : why aren’t any of the trees in cultivation in the West showing white bark? I suspect it may be either a function of age, the bark turning white with old age (as our hair does), or the result of something in our soils or our weather that precludes the forma- tion of the white bark and that causes the Plant collector Frank N. Meyer photographed this speci- pines to retain a mosaic pattern throughout men in ShantungProvince in 1907. He stated that "The most noble a white-barked seen their lives. As M. Addis specimen of pine yet by J. reported seeing me. Growing m the Yen-fu-tse temple [in Chu-fu]. Meas- young trees with white, flaking bark in a ures sixteen feet in circumference, six feet above the Beijing nursery, it looks as though the mys- ground. I estimate its age at fifteen or sixteen centuries, the Chinese it is much older. For will continue a bit though say noble, tery longer. serene I have not seen a tree that The Chinese have used Pinus for impressiveness, yet, bungeana can be compared with this white-barked pine. Photo- specimen planting in courtyards and have graph from the Archives of the Arnold Arboretum. also lined avenues with it, letting its white boughs arch together. I suggest that it be considered for lawn plantings, public parks, cemeteries, golf courses, and corporate and We are pleased to report a surplus of college campuses. It has shown a wide range Pinus bungeana seedlings and are of- of tolerances, growing in poor alkaline soil fering trios of two-and-one-half-year- and acid brown soils and tolerating tempera- old plants of AA 1304-85 for $25.00, tures over 100 F and below 0 F. Selective payable in advance. Orders received by pruning during the early stages of a tree’s life September 30, 1988, will be mailed in would help to show the trunk to best advan- the fall, those afterwards in the spring. Send with checks made tage and establish good form. orders, payable to "Arnold to: This amazing tree, a witness to the burials Arboretum," of the Celestial Empire, is still a rarity outside Robert G. Nicholson China. Its odyssey from remote windswept Pine Distribution mountains in China to royal courtyards, to Dana Greenhouses the estates and botanical gardens of the West Arnold Arboretum is an unrivalled journey. If it proves nothing Arborway else, it is that the appreciation of beauty Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-2795 knows no boundaries of time or space. 38

References 1978. 216 pages. J. M. Addis. Pinus bungeana. Journal of the Royal Hui-Lin Li. The lace-bark pine, Pinus bungeana. Morris Horticultural Society, Volume 85, Part 2, Arboretum Bulletin, Volume 19, Number 1, pages 92 and 93 (February 1960). pages 3 to 7 (March 1968). Emil Bretschneider. History of European Botanical John H. Reisner. Progress of forestry in China. American Discoveries in China. Two volumes. Saint Forestry, Volume 26, Number 322, pages 655 Petersburg: Imperial Russian Academy of Sci- to 658 (November 1920). ences, 1898 (Leipzig: Zentral-Antiquariat der Charles Sprague Sargent, editor. Plant. Wilsonix, Part Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1981).[ . 4. Publications of the Arnold Arboretum 1,167 pages. Number 4. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Har- Chow Hang-fan. The Pamiliar Trees of Hopei. Hand- vard University Press, 1914-1916. 661 pages. book Number 4. [Beijing:] Peking Natural (Pinus bungeana, pages 13 and 14.) History Bulletin, 1934. (Pinus bungeana: Osvald Siren. Gardens of China. New York: The Ronald pages 30 to 32.) Press, 1949. 149 pages. William B. Critchfield and Elbert L. Little, Jr. Geo- Harry Smith. A preliminary report on botanical investi- graphical Distribution of the Pines of the gation in south and central Shansi. China World. Miscellaneous Publication 991. Wash- Journal of Science and Arts, Volume 3, pages ington, D. C.: Forest Service, United States 449 to 454 and 503 to 509 (1926). Department of Agriculture, 1966. 97 pages. Arthur de Carle Sowerby. The white-barked pine (Pinus Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, Fourth Series, Volume 5 bungeana Zucc.) in North China. Journal of (1909). (Pinus bungeana: Plate 8240.) the Royal Horticultural Society, Volume 62, William Dallimore. The lace-bark pine of China (Pinus Part 10, pages 443 to 445 (October 1937). bungeana Zuccarini). Journal of the Royal T. T’ang. Account of a botanical tour in Shansi. Bulletin Horticultural Society, Volume 59, Part 2, of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, pages 249 and 250 (July 1934). Volume 2, pages 45 to 63 (1931).[ . P. H. Dorsett. Glimpses of the white-barked pine in C. L. Wu. The taxonomic revision and phytogeographi- Peiping and vicinity. Pages 38 and 39 in: Inter- cal study of Chinese pines. Acta Phytotaxon- national Dendrology Society Year Book 1975. omica Sinica, Volume 5, pages 131 to 163 London: Intemational Dendrology Society, (1956). 1976. 96 pages. Editorial Committee. A portfolio of conifers. American Horticultural Magazine, Volume 42, Number 4, pages 188 to 206 (October 1963). (Pinus Robert G. Nicholson is a member of the staff of the bungeana: pages 193 to 195.) Henry J. Elwes and Augustme Henry. The Trees of Grea t Arnold Arboretum. He writes often for Arnoldia and Britain and Ireland, Volume 5. Edinburgh: other horticultural publications. Privately printed, 1910. Pages 1001 to 1334. (Pinus bungeana: pages 1050 and 1051.~.[ Aljos Farjon. Pines, Drawings and Descriptions of the Genus Pinus. Leiden: E. J. Brill/Dr. W. Back- huys, 1984. 220 pages. Robert Fortune. Yedo and Peking: A Narrative of a Journey 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, Number 3, page 91 (March 1, 1873). Joseph Hers. Notes on the conifers of North China. The China 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 la Societe Dendrologique de France, Number 45, pages 104 to 109 (15 November 1922). Maggie Keswick. The Chinese Garden: History, Art e~J Architecture. London: Academy Editions, BOOKS

Living Treasures: An Odyssey through ing an unspoiled expanse of "swan lakes" in China’s Extraordinary Nature Reserves, by Xinjiang’s Yurdus Basin, where herdsmen Tang Xiyang. Illustrated with more than 300 live in peaceful coexistence with swans, color photographs. Foreword by S. Dillon which they consider to be the bearers of good Ripley. New York: Bantam Books, Inc.; Pe- luck from heaven. In other vignettes king : New World Press. 208 pages. $29.95 elephants display "community spirit," mon- in ($34.95 Canada). keys break open ropes with their teeth to rescue trapped friends. Tang describes the last MARION D. CAHAN surviving band of Guizhou golden monkeys, animals so rare that their scientific value is a journalist who was banished, Tang Xiyang, beyond calculation; the crested ibis; the rare with his to a along family, "reform-through- reptile that may have prompted the myth of labor" camp in the Chinese countryside dur- the dragon; the elusive panda. ing the Cultural Revolution, has written a de- This and book is and informative book about his ad- compelling fascinating lightful the first-ever joint publishing venture be- ventures in China’s nature reserves. superb tween the American Bantam total and unshak- publisher, Tang’s concern, dedication, Books, and the People’s Republic of China. A able resolve to protect all wildlife in of spite few photographs, unfortunately, are not and are great physical hardship danger inspir- sharp; this may be due to the difficulty of In addition to adventures of ing. recounting holding a camera for long periods while wait- his own in more than three hundred of the ing to take a shot. Also, many of the photo- reserves, he data on their environ- provides graphs were taken from a great distance. Un- ment, and and on the topography, history, fortunately, too, there is no index. Despite its status of their floras and faunas. His present shortcomings, this excellent book is well writing, pleasantly fluid and absorbing, is worth reading. complemented by gems of classic Chinese poetry and historical accounts. China’s nature reserve system is undergo- Marion D. Cahan has been a volunteer member of ing a vigorous period of growth. In a recent Aznoldia’s editorial staff for the past several years. An alumna of , she has studied architec- three-year period, one hundred seventy new ture in the Graduate School of Design, Harvard Univer- reserves were established-nearly as many as sity. were established in the previous thirty years. I found it particularly interesting to learn of the high protection that China now provides the plants and animals in the reserves. Severe penalties are imposed on those who trap or kill 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- 40

U. S. POSTAL SERVICE STATEMENT 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: $12.00 domestic, $15.00 foreign. 4. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: The Arnold Arboretum, Arborway, Jamaica Plain (Boston), Suffolk County, MA 02130-2795. 5. Complete mailing address of the head- quarters or general business offices of the publishers: The Arnold Arboretum, Arborway, Jamaica Plain (Boston), Suffolk County, MA 02130-2795.6. Full names and com- plete mailing address of Publisher, Editor, and Managmg Editor: 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), Suffolk County, MA 02130-2795. 8. Known bondholders, mort- gagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities: None. 9. For completion by nonprofit or- ganizations authorized to mail at special rates (Section 411.3, DMM only): The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for Federal income tax purposes have not changed during the preceding 12 months. 10. Extent and nature of circula- tion : A. Total number of copies. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 5,000. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 5,000. B. Paid circulation. 1. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, and counter sales. Avezage number of copres each rssue during the preceding 12 months: None. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: None. 2. Mail subscrip- tion. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 4,116. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 4,068. C. Total paid circulation: Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 4,116. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 4,068. D. Free distribution by mail, carrier, or other means (sample, complimentary, and other free copies). Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: None. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: None. E. Total distribution. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 4,116. Actual number of copies 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 of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months’ 885. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 832. 2. Returns from news agents. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: None. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: None. G. Total. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 5,000. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 5,000. 11.1 certify that the statements made by me above are correct and com- plete. Edmund A. Schofield, Editor.