Plant specialist's passion still flowers

In December, Wang was among the 10 people from all walks of life who were named Beijing role models of the year by the municipal publicity department.

He was acknowledged for his many achievements, such as completing the first English monograph on Microtoena, a perennial or annual herbaceous genus (part of the mint family), that covers about 20 species distributed throughout Southeast Asia and southern China.

Widely used as a spice in South and Southeast Asia, Microtoena is also commonly applied by some ethnic groups as a medicine in the southwestern region of China.

However, disputes had never ceased about the true nature of the species that were published before, and the phylogenetic relationships between those species were also unclear, Wang says.

To resolve the issue, Wang traversed through the mountainous areas of the Himalayas in search of every possible place where Microtoena could be distributed.

After three years of field research, he collected numerous valuable specimens and experimental samples, and analyzed specimens from more than 40 important herbaria at home and abroad.

Based on statistical analyses of population-level traits of various species within the genus and additional comprehensive systematic analyses, he successfully completed the first global taxonomic revision of the genus and published it in 2018.