Since the mid-19th century, when America's first professional botanist, Asa Gray of Harvard University, pointed out the similarity, botanists have been fascinated with the large number of related species and genera of plants growing in eastern North America and in eastern Asia. Climatic similarity can explain in part many of these plant distributional ranges, as gardeners may suspect, who have grown varieties developed first in China. Geological events, from the Pleistocene and earlier, have also helped shape similarities in the floras of the two continents. But the similarities are in fact outweighed by substantial differences in species composition, and by the rich diversity of eastern Asian biota, with an estimated 30,000 plant species occurring in China. Unfortunately, accessibility of this rich plant biota has been severely limited for the last two generations, and Chinese botanists in turn have worked in relative isolation. The Flora of China project presents an opportunity to reverse that isolationist separation, and bring together Chinese and American botanists to translate, revise, and computerize taxonomic information about China's rich flora. Since 1959 Chinese scholars have been collecting plant specimens throughout China and preparing descriptive floristic publications on the flora. About 50 volumes have been published, all in Chinese; 50-70 additional volumes are to be completed in the next decade. The present project would facilitate the translation into English of the published volumes, in synoptic format. In addition, American botanists would work with their Chinese counterparts on selected taxonomic revisions, incorporating data from specimens held in U.S. institutions that have not been used by the Chinese in their own studies; the collections at Harvard University and at the California Academy of Sciences especially are important resources. Finally, all the floristic data will be incorporated into computer databanks now under development at the Missouri Botanical Garden, using formats compatible with those now being employed for the Flora of North America program already established there. This first award, made at a difficult time in the history of U.S.-Chinese relations, builds upon close contacts and research agreements established after years of consultation and involving the four principal botanical institutes in China as well as three major botanical institutions in the U.S., with Prof. Peter Raven and his colleague Dr. William Tai serving as principal investigators. Numerous colleagues have also pledged their support to this ambitious and important undertaking, which promises a significant expansion in scientific knowledge of northern hemisphere plant resources.
