Profile

His Zhongguo Shumu Fenleixue (Taxonomy of Chinese Trees) first described Eucommia's morphology and production in detail within the modern taxonomic system.

Story

Chen Rong (1888–1971), courtesy name Zongyi, of Anji in Zhejiang, was a pioneer of modern Chinese forestry and a founder of dendrological taxonomy. Eucommia, as a tree of economic value endemic to China, was one of the species he focused on and documented.

In his Taxonomy of Chinese Trees, published in 1937, Chen Rong systematically described the morphology and productive utilization of Eucommia (Eucommia ulmoides Oliv.) within the modern botanical taxonomic system, bringing this traditional medicinal of the Shennong's Classic era into the framework of modern forestry science. His account provided the earliest indigenous taxonomic documentary basis for later scientific research and industrial development of Eucommia as an economic tree species (bark, gutta-percha, timber).

Milestones

• In his early years studied dendrology and silviculture at Harvard University and the Saxon Academy of Forestry in Germany
• Served as professor of forestry at the University of Nanking and National Central University, and participated in founding the Chinese Society of Forestry
• Advocated afforestation all his life, directing greening surveys for the Chinese Agricultural Society and other bodies in the 1930s

Key Contributions

• In 1937 published Taxonomy of Chinese Trees, the first dendrological taxonomy monograph authored by a Chinese scholar
• The book gives a fairly detailed modern scientific account of Eucommia's morphological characteristics and production, listing the Eucommiaceae as a monotypic family
• Served as head of the Forestry Department at the University of Nanking; a founder of modern forestry and dendrological-taxonomy education in China
• His work is the important indigenous starting point for later literature such as Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae in treating Eucommia