Flora of China Project to Translate, Revise, and Computerizethe Florae Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae

自19世纪中叶美国第一位专业植物学家、哈佛大学的阿萨·格雷指出这种相似性以来，植物学家一直对生长在北美东部和东亚的大量相关物种和属的植物着迷。气候相似性可以部分解释这些植物分布范围中的许多，正如园丁可能怀疑的那样，他们种植的品种最先在中国开发。更新世及更早的地质事件也有助于形成这两个大陆植物群的相似之处。但实际上，物种组成的巨大差异以及东亚生物群的丰富多样性掩盖了这些相似之处，据估计，中国有30,000种植物。不幸的是，在过去的两代人中，这种丰富的植物生物群的可及性受到了严重的限制，而中国的植物学家反过来又在相对孤立的情况下工作。中国植物区系项目为扭转这种孤立的分离提供了一个机会，并将中美植物学家聚集在一起，翻译、修订和计算机化关于中国丰富植物区系的分类信息。自1959年以来，中国学者一直在收集中国全境的植物标本，并准备关于该植物区系的描述性出版物。已经出版了大约50卷，全部是中文的；未来十年还将完成另外50-70卷。本项目将促进以概要格式将出版的各卷翻译成英文。此外，美国植物学家将与中国同行合作进行选定的分类修订，纳入来自美国机构保存的标本的数据，中国人在自己的研究中没有使用这些标本；哈佛大学和加州科学院的标本尤其是重要的资源。最后，所有的植物区系数据将被合并到密苏里州植物园目前正在开发的计算机数据库中，使用的格式与已经在那里建立的北美植物志项目现在使用的格式兼容。第一个奖项是在美中关系史上的困难时期颁发的，建立在经过多年磋商后建立的密切联系和研究协议的基础上，中国的四个主要植物研究所以及美国的三个主要植物研究所参与了这个奖项，彼得·雷文教授和他的同事威廉·戴博士担任首席研究员。许多同事也承诺支持这项雄心勃勃而重要的工作，这项工作有望显著扩大北半球植物资源的科学知识。

Since the mid-19th century, when America's first professional botanist, Asa Gray of Harvard University, pointed out the similarity, botanists have been fascinated with the large number of related species and genera of plants growing in eastern North America and in eastern Asia. Climatic similarity can explain in part many of these plant distributional ranges, as gardeners may suspect, who have grown varieties developed first in China. Geological events, from the Pleistocene and earlier, have also helped shape similarities in the floras of the two continents. But the similarities are in fact outweighed by substantial differences in species composition, and by the rich diversity of eastern Asian biota, with an estimated 30,000 plant species occurring in China. Unfortunately, accessibility of this rich plant biota has been severely limited for the last two generations, and Chinese botanists in turn have worked in relative isolation. The Flora of China project presents an opportunity to reverse that isolationist separation, and bring together Chinese and American botanists to translate, revise, and computerize taxonomic information about China's rich flora. Since 1959 Chinese scholars have been collecting plant specimens throughout China and preparing descriptive floristic publications on the flora. About 50 volumes have been published, all in Chinese; 50-70 additional volumes are to be completed in the next decade. The present project would facilitate the translation into English of the published volumes, in synoptic format. In addition, American botanists would work with their Chinese counterparts on selected taxonomic revisions, incorporating data from specimens held in U.S. institutions that have not been used by the Chinese in their own studies; the collections at Harvard University and at the California Academy of Sciences especially are important resources. Finally, all the floristic data will be incorporated into computer databanks now under development at the Missouri Botanical Garden, using formats compatible with those now being employed for the Flora of North America program already established there. This first award, made at a difficult time in the history of U.S.-Chinese relations, builds upon close contacts and research agreements established after years of consultation and involving the four principal botanical institutes in China as well as three major botanical institutions in the U.S., with Prof. Peter Raven and his colleague Dr. William Tai serving as principal investigators. Numerous colleagues have also pledged their support to this ambitious and important undertaking, which promises a significant expansion in scientific knowledge of northern hemisphere plant resources.