中国科学院植物研究所 - Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing

你们好！Tuesday also yielded important data regarding my thesis. Dr. Maria Tu, a professor at the University of Delaware and a member of my thesis committee, was also in Beijing as an instuctor for the Governor's School. She went with me to the Institute of Botany, CAS, Beijing (i.e. the southern Beijing Botanical Garden) and assisted with translation during the meetings. We were welcomed to the Institute by Dr. SHI Lei, the Assistant Director, who toured us through the gardens and facilities. During the formal discussion regarding my thesis project, he had many valuable insights and suggestions regarding the structure and administration of the proposed exchange program and indicated that the Chinese Academy of Sciences would be keenly interested in supporting this program as it would be mutually beneficial to both countries.

The National Herbarium, Institute of Botany, CAS, Beijing

During the tour of the facilities, Dr. Shi brought us to the huge National Herbarium - the largest in Asia - where we met Dr. LIN Qi, the Deputy Curator. The herbarium has over 2.4 million specimens and over 10,000 type-specimens. The building in which the collections are housed has recently been remodeled and now boasts state of the art facilities. During our time in the herbarium, workers were digitizing herbarium specimens and incorporating the data into the new Chinese Virtual Herbarium (http://www.cvh.org.cn/) - a huge undertaking indeed! The picture to the right is of Dr. Lin proudly holding an American oak specimen (Quercus prinoides), sent to the herbarium by the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.

A path beckoning visitors to explore what lies ahead

This building was originally built for a movie filmed at the garden, but rather than being torn down afterwards, it was later turned into a restaurant for visitors to the garden.