Ren-Chang Ching

Ren-Chang Ching
Ren-Chang Ching
	University of Nanjing
	Scientific career
Fields	Botany
Institutions	Academia Sinica; Chinese Academy of Sciences
Academic advisors	John George Jack
Chinese name
Hanyu Pinyin	Zǐnóng

Ren-Chang Ching (Chinese: 秦仁昌; pinyin: Qín Rénchāng; 15 February 1898 – 22 July 1986), courtesy name Zinong, was a Chinese botanist who specialised in ferns.

Life and work

Ren-Chang Ching was a Chinese botanist and pteridologist who made significant collections of plants from

pteridophytes, which thereafter became his speciality. At this time, there were no experts on Chinese ferns in China and no single fern specimen was correctly identified in the small herbarium just started in Beijing. Ching started to correspond with pteridologists in the West (H. Christ, C. Christensen, W. R. Maxon and E. Copeland

), thereby creating a basic library on Asiatic ferns for reference. In addition he started to make extensive collections of ferns, particularly from the provinces south of the Yangtze, but he knew he needed to see the type specimens in western herbaria.

Learning western languages so he could access the many Chinese herbarium specimens held in western institutions, Ching visited Europe following the Fifth International Botanical Congress in 1930. In Copenhagen, he consulted the fern expert

Mountain Lu Botanical Garden in Jiujiang

.

When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, Ching fled to Kunming (Yunnan Province), where, working at Yunnan University, he helped to found the Lijiang Botanical Station, where he was director until 1945. Ching remained in Yunnan until 1949, when he returned to Beijing to head the Taxonomic Section in the Institute of Botany, Academia Sinica, where his energies were largely focussed on education and forestry. However, his interest in ferns continued for the rest of his life, with him finally publishing more than 140 papers and books on them. Major works were Icones Filicum Sinicarum (1930-1958) and the series Studies of Chinese Ferns. He was also the principal author of the fern treatments in Flora Republicae Popularis Sinicae.

(This section is essentially a rewrite of the corresponding JSTOR article.^[1])

Some plants he authored

(In the Adiantaceae)^[2]
Adiantum annamense Ching—Acta Phytotax. Sin. 6: 315. 1957.
Adiantum breviserratum (Ching) Ching & Y.X.Lin—Acta Phytotax. Sin. 18(1): 104. 1980
Adiantum capillus-veneris L. f. dissectum (M.Martens & Galeotti) Ching—Acta Phytotax. Sin. 6: 344. 1957
Adiantum capillus-veneris L. f. fissum (Christ) Ching—Acta Phytotax. Sin. 6: 343. 1957
Adiantum chienii Ching—Sinensia 1: 50. 1930
Adiantum davidii var. longispinum Ching—Acta Phytotax. Sin. 6: 333. 1957

Sources

R.C. Ching and Z.H. Wang, 1982, "A Brief Report on the Progress of Pteridological Research in China", American Fern Journal, 72(1): 1-2
K.S. Shing (ed. A.C. Jermy and A.M. Paul), 1988, "Ching Ren Chang 1898-1986: A Bibliography", Taxon, 37(2): 409-416.
Brummitt, R.K. & Powell, C.E., Authors Pl. Names (1992): 118; Chaudhri, M.N., Vegter, H.I. & de Bary, H.A., Index Herb. Coll. I-L (1972): 452; Lanjouw, J. & Stafleu, F.A., Index Herb. Coll. A-D (1954): 125, 166; Vegter, H.I., Index Herb. Coll. T-Z (1988): 1045;

References

^ JSTOR Global Plants: Ren-Chang Ching
^ "IPNI: Plant name search (author Ching)". Retrieved 27 July 2018.

External links

JSTOR Global Plants: Ren-Chang Ching

The standard author abbreviation Ching is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.^[1]

^ International Plant Names Index. Ching.

[JSTOR-1] JSTOR Global Plants: Ren-Chang Ching

[ipniplant-2] "IPNI: Plant name search (author Ching)". Retrieved 27 July 2018.

[3] International Plant Names Index. Ching.

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