Passion for plants flowers into expertise

In 2014, Tan graduated from junior college and started working at the Guanmenshan Scenic Area. The same year, Du was sent by the university to work with the administration of the Shennongjia National Nature Reserve as part of a government project to help with conservation and research at the reserve. The botanist, who has a special interest in Hubei's plants, had visited Shennongjia — the largest nature sanctuary in the province — every year since 2008, and would work in the area for a year.

Tan seized the opportunity to ask Du to take him on as his apprentice, and the botanist agreed.

"I wanted to help him learn something useful, something that could change his life in the future," Du said. "Few people know even a little bit of plant taxonomy, especially at the grassroots level. In teaching him, I also wanted to help train someone to work in Shennongjia."

In his spare time, Tan joined Du in exploring the forest and learned how to identify its many plant species. In 2015, Du published a book about Shennongjia's plants with two other authors. "I joked with Tan, saying, 'If I leave Shennongjia, I hope you can be No 1 (in the area's plant taxonomy)'," Du said.

Tan bought a computer in 2015 so that he could study botany online. Following Du's suggestion, he also bought a secondhand camera in 2017 and started taking photos of plants.

He would send photos of any plants he couldn't identify to Du for help. Later, he joined a number of online chat rooms dedicated to different plant families and uploaded his photos to some popular plant websites. Over the years, he has spent around 1,000 yuan ($140) buying books on botany, and his photos have been published in four books.

Tan is now known to many botanists, and if they need specimens of certain plant species, they ask him for help. He charges between 300-500 yuan per species and spends most of his days off collecting plant specimens for researchers around the country.