Passion for plants takes photographer worldwide

In his first post on his public WeChat account, Zhou Xinxin declared: "I have a dream. I want to be the person who photographs the most plant species in the world one day."

Within the country's community of botanists and ardent plant enthusiasts, few would consider this dream to be unrealistic, as current public data indicates that the 43-year-old has already photographed more plant species than anyone else in China.

In July and September last year, Zhou updated all the plant photos he had taken on the Chinese Field Herbarium and the Plant Photo Bank of China, the two largest plant image websites in China. CFH is run by the Chenshan Botanical Garden in Shanghai, and PPBC by the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

On both websites, Zhou ranks first in the number of plant species photographed, with 16,421 on CFH and 16,430 on PPBC.

In fact, he told China Daily that on iNaturalist, an international online social network where members discuss biodiversity, the person with the highest number of photographed plant species has captured fewer plant species than him, so he might already rank first in the world.

"My aspiration is to genuinely rank first worldwide," he said."So I made the choice to broaden my botanical explorations to include other countries. For example, I visited Malaysia earlier last year."

During this year's Spring Festival, he spent 23 days exploring Vietnam, and then in May, he made a 15-day trip to Turkiye. At present, he is participating in a plant survey in the Xizang autonomous region. Next month, he will head to South Africa for 20 days.

"I now plan to visit all of the world's floristic regions and take photos of all families of the world's vascular plants in the next 20 years," Zhou said.

Currently, there are about 400,000 species of vascular plants in the world, grouped into approximately 13,000 genera and more than 400 families.

Pure obsession

It's truly remarkable to consider that just 12 years ago, Zhou, who hails from Anhui province, was merely a novice in the world of botany.

After graduating from Anhui University in Hefei, the provincial capital, in 2002, he joined a medical equipment company in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, as a salesperson. He was soon transferred by the company to a branch in Beijing, where he lived and worked for a decade.

In 2012, he resigned and took a break from working for a while. Then one day, he stumbled upon a news article discussing the identification of wild plants in urban areas, which sparked his newfound interest in botanical exploration.

The article discussed an online chat group consisting of botanical enthusiasts in Beijing. Zhou quickly joined and became an active participant.

Some of the members he met were postgraduate students who were majoring in botany at Beijing Forestry University.

The university has a workstation at the Xiaolongmen Forest Farm on the outskirts of Beijing, where its students can conduct field studies. Zhou visited a friend at the farm and studied botany with the students there.

"At Xiaolongmen, I bought a copy of Flora of Beijing and learned how to use the taxonomic key in the books to identify plants," he said.

"It was a book I read again and again."

After spending several months taking photos of plants in Beijing and trying to identify them, he traveled to Zhejiang province to continue his botanical studies, purchasing a copy of Flora of Zhejiang upon arriving.

By 2013, Zhou's initial interest in botany had evolved into a full-fledged obsession. Over the next two years, he worked a sales job while dedicating nearly all his free time to photographing plants.

In 2015, he quit that job and decided to spend a year immersing himself in his botanical pursuits.

He began participating in a multitude of plant surveys initiated by botanists nationwide, offering his services as either a paid field assistant or a volunteer. His responsibilities included photographing and identifying wild plants, and collecting specimens.

"Since 2015, I've spent more than 200 days a year exploring the wilderness by car, searching for plants and taking photos of them," Zhou said.

He became known among the country's botanists for his ability to find rare wild plants, which allowed him to obtain an increasing number of field job opportunities. In 2018, a botanist with the South China Botanical Garden of the CAS in Guangzhou, Guangdong, invited him to join his team as a full-time research assistant.

Zhou worked with the botanist for two years and has been employed at the botanical garden ever since. He is currently an assistant in the botanical garden's herbarium, where he is responsible for collecting plant specimens and identifying them.

"I need to cooperate with different research teams at the botanical garden," he said.

He also continues to receive invitations to join plant surveys across the country, often as a field expert.

Road to the top

Zhou's work in the wild has enabled him to realize his initial dream to photograph more plant species than anyone else in China.

In a post on his public WeChat account, he wrote about how he managed to photograph so many plant species. He credited three key points with his success.

First, he travels to as many places as possible. "Plants have distinct regional characteristics, so visiting different locations yields diverse plant species," he wrote.

Zhou has been to all of China's provincial-level regions and special administrative regions.

Last year, he drove more than 80,000 kilometers to find plants to photograph.

Second, he takes photos of every plant he encounters in each location, as some places may be challenging to revisit.

"I appreciate the uniqueness of every plant, regardless of its appearance, believing each has its special qualities," he said. "Different from most enthusiasts who prefer beautiful flowers to unimpressive trees or grasses, I will attempt to take photos of every new species I find at a site."

His method has often led to unexpected discoveries, he said, but it has also led him to take too many photos at the locations. As a result, he frequently stays up until 2 or 3 am to organize all the pictures he takes.

Thirdly, he sets quantifiable goals for himself.

Over the years, he has collaborated with researchers in the discovery, naming and publishing of a dozen new plant species and was the lead author of two research papers.

"Along with increasing the number of my photographed species, my vision has broadened and my understanding of floral regions and plant classification has deepened," Zhou said. "I started thinking of trying to see every family of the country's flora in 2018, and then decided to see every genus in 2020. To meet these targets, I had to carefully plan my botanical trips, always with specific objectives in mind."

In 2021, he managed to view almost all families of the country's vascular plants. As of last year, there were still 470 genera of vascular plants in China that he had yet to photograph, but he remains determined to achieve his goal of seeing more than 95 percent of all the nation's genera by the end of 2027.

According to the latest Chinese plant data compiled by Professor Liu Bing from the CAS, excluding moss plants, there are a total of 359 families, 3,664 genera and 35,443 species of vascular plants.

Perilous journeys

While spending countless hours behind the wheel and numerous days in the wilderness, Zhou has encountered a multitude of dangers over the years.

While driving along a long-abandoned road in a mountainous area in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, he narrowly escaped a landslide.

During a plant survey with a team of five botanists in a township in Nang county, Xizang autonomous region, their car got stuck in an alpine meadow more than 3,000 meters above sea level.

Zhou and one member of the team lost contact with the other three and had to walk for hours in the mountains.

"It was raining and freezing," he recalled. "The loss of temperature put us in danger."

Fortunately, the other team members managed to dislodge the car and find Zhou and his companion in the darkness.

He was not so lucky while conducting a survey in the jungle of Metog in southeastern Xizang in 2022. He was bitten by a tick and came down with a rickettsial infection, a disease that is difficult to diagnose and can be life-threatening if treatment is delayed.

Zhou had a high fever for a couple of days and experienced aches throughout his entire body. The doctor in the remote county failed to diagnose the disease and didn't give him the right treatment. "It was so painful that I even thought about suicide," Zhou said.

A doctor friend of his in Guangzhou was informed of his plight, correctly determined the cause and recommended an alternative treatment.

"He suggested that my doctor in Metog treat me with doxycycline (an antibiotic used to treat many kinds of bacterial infections)," he said. "It saved my life. But the medicine also killed many healthy bacteria in my body. I felt ill for a long time and had to spend half a year recuperating."

Since his recovery, Zhou has continued his botanical explorations around the world — and has continued to experience other maladies.

During his trip to Vietnam earlier this year, he was bitten by a species of fire ant, which caused his leg to swell rapidly. His local guide tried to squeeze out the venom by using a knife to cut the wound open.

Zhou managed to visit a hospital and had to take antibiotics for two weeks. After returning to Guangzhou, he visited a hospital there regularly to treat his wound for another month. Despite the difficulties, he said his woes are nothing compared with the joy and excitement he derives from his botanical excursions.

"Knowing plants and their names has given me a new way to look at the world," he said."In Turkiye, I found that the locals cultivate a type of olea because they like eating its nuts. In Malaysia, I found palm oil can be used for many things."

Looking ahead, Zhou said he plans to make three overseas trips annually, hoping to add three new families and 200 genera of plants to his world list each year.

With just two trips this year, he has already added five families and 184 genera of plants to his list.

"So after finishing my work in Xizang and a trip to South Africa, I might add 10 families and 400 genera to my list by the end of the year," he said.