Biodiv Sci ›› 2018, Vol. 26 ›› Issue (1): 79-88.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2017328

• Bioinventories • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Research on the plant collection of Kuan-Kuang Tsoong, the forerunner of Chinese plant collections

Shiyong Meng1,*(), Huiyuan Liu2,3, Mengting Yu4, Quanru Liu3, Jinshuang Ma5,*()   

  1. 1 School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871
    2 Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093
    3 College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875
    4 Department of Philosophy, Peking University, Beijing 100871
    5 Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden; Shanghai Chenshan Plant Science Research Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201602
  • Received:2017-12-10 Accepted:2018-01-18 Online:2018-01-20 Published:2018-05-05
  • Contact: Meng Shiyong,Ma Jinshuang
  • About author:

    # Co-first authors

Abstract:

Through literature and specimen research, we studied the collection history of Kuan-Kuang Tsoong, the forerunner of Chinese plant collections. Results showed that Kuan-Kuang Tsoong was the first scholar who conducted large-scale plant specimen collections in China and confirmed that the earliest specimen collected by Kuan-Kuang Tsoong was collected in 1912 (from Beijing) and the last specimens were collected in 1933 (from Zhejiang). Currently, 10,228 specimens collected by Kuan-Kuang Tsoong have been found, including specimens founds at the Herbarium, Department of Biology, Peking University (PEY, 4,584 sheets), Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (PE, 2,966) and Herbarium, College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University (BNU, 2,032). These herbaria preserved most specimens (9,582 sheets, accounting for 93.7% of the total). Our study also found that a small number of specimens collected by Kuan-Kuang Tsoong (16) were preserved by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K), the Edinburgh Botanic Garden (E), and Harvard University Herbaria (A).

Key words: collection, Kuan-Kuang Tsoong, plant specimen, herbarium