Passion for plants flowers into expertise

Encounter with botany instructor sets Guanmenshan Scenic Area employee on path to professionalism

In Muyu town, the administrative seat of the Shennongjia Forest Area in Hubei province, Tan Fei is a well-known figure. When people are asked about the 29-year-old resident, they usually describe him as a "good lad", or as "fond of learning".

Both descriptions are accurate, as Tan's passion for learning about local flora has made him one of the most knowledgeable individuals on the plants of Shennongjia. A biodiversity hot spot and a UNESCO World Nature Heritage site, Shennongjia has more than 4,000 vascular plant species, and Tan is able to identify about half of them.

After graduating from junior high school, Tan, who comes from a farming family in a village about 10 minutes drive from Muyu, began studying at a junior college in 2011, where he majored in tourism. In the summer of 2012, he took an internship at the Guanmenshan Scenic Area with some of his classmates.

There, he learned how to make herbariums for sale to visitors as souvenirs.

A tourist attraction dedicated to the popularization of science and home to museums and a botanical garden, Guanmenshan has also long been a field study center for many university students majoring in biology in Hubei.

That summer, Tan met a group of students and their instructors from Wuhan University. One of the instructors, Du Wei, told Tan that many of the plant specimens were wrongly identified, which triggered his interest in botany.

During their 10-day visit, the Wuhan students explored the forest by day, and their teachers gave classes in the evening. Tan sat in on all the botany classes, which were taught by four instructors, including Du, who was a doctoral candidate at the time.

"After the classes, I fell in love with botany," Tan said.

Interning at Guanmenshan again in the summer of 2013, Tan again met Du and his students. This time, he got the chance to know Du.

He had many questions about botany and wanted to know the names of plants in the forest. "Du gave me the answers," Tan said.

Du, who now teaches and does research at Wuhan University after completing his doctorate in 2013, remembers "Little Chunky", Tan's nickname, as being very interesting.