Botanist documents beauty of Kenya's plants

Wang Qingfeng's office in Wuhan, Hubei province, is decorated with a host of items and novelties from Africa, and among them is a painting of a baobab tree on a special type of paper from a plant native to the continent.

The botanist has spent nearly 30 years traveling back and forth between Africa and China as he cataloged Africa's diverse plant life.

In September last year, the first volume of Flora of Kenya was published, with Wang serving as the chief editor on the Chinese side. It was the first book about the flora of a country other than China organized and compiled by Chinese researchers.

In May, a study systematically explaining the evolutionary history of the baobab tree was published in the journal Nature. Wang, who is director of the Wuhan Botanical Garden and director of the Sino-Africa Joint Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was one of the two authors.

The first seeds of Wang's passion for the continent of Africa began in 1996 when he was sent to the University of N'Djamena in Chad to set up a laboratory.

Adjusting to the relatively harsh conditions compared to his life in Wuhan, Wang endured scorching temperatures, limited water, frequent power outages and the threat of diseases such as malaria and cholera, which were prevalent at that time.

Due to these risks, the botanist never went anywhere without his aromatic oil to ward away mosquitoes and quinine to combat the risks of malaria.

"At that time, there were no other medicines available. Some people said quinine had side effects, but having side effects was better than having malaria," Wang recalled.

"Over time, it has become a habit. Even now, you can find aromatic oil in my toiletry bag," he said. "But conditions have improved now. From Nairobi to the Maasai Mara, you can see significant changes in the roads, buildings and the environment."