used to vow not to study plants anymore
It turned out that I still couldn't give up
"Plant Hunter" Yang Zongzong's schedule followed the flower calendar. He lives in Urumqi, Xinjiang. In April, the snow melted, so he set out to northern Xinjiang to look for wild tulips and single-tail grass . When these "short-lived plants" in early spring have passed, he will go to Altay or Yili to find wild Xinjiang peony and pig teeth flower . In summer, he would drive to Pamir Plateau to wait for delphinium flower and Kashmir snow lotus to bloom. When autumn comes, the chenosa family plants around Urumqi have become a new paradise.
In the past eight years, Yang Zongzong, who has loved Xinjiang plants since childhood, has discovered 8 new species and photographed more than 2,000 rare plants blooming. Starting from 2021, he will publish all the strange plants he encountered and the plant knowledge he knows on Douyin : the twisted fruit flagpole growing on the Gobi Desert, the full clematis scattered in the Altai Mountains in early summer, the bright Tianshan red flowers on the pasture, and the snow lotus thriving at the foot of the glacier... Some plants are common in life but do not recognize them, and some are national-level endangered species.
Image source: Yang Zongzong Douyin video screenshot
"I do Douyin science popularization to awaken everyone's understanding of plant protection . Only by improving everyone's understanding of species and improving the scientific literacy of the people can we fundamentally solve the problem of protection." Yang Zongzong said. For him, recording and sharing the life course of these plants is not a responsibility given by others, but his own choice - although he has not embarked on the academic path, he is still sure that he is the person chosen by the plants.
"I still can't give up"
Yang Zongzong first developed a strong interest in plants when he was six years old. At that time, he had a book called "Xinjiang Chinese Herbal Medicine Manual". The drawings in the book allowed Yang Zongzong to see various forms of plants, and he felt that they were both mysterious and quiet.
At that time, Yang Zongzong had never seen the real nature. He was born in the city of Urumqi in 1984. His closest contact with plants was nothing more than going to the garden behind the house to steal nectar. But he loves plants. My grandfather is a professor at the Party School. He set up a piece of 20 square meters of land behind the family compound to plant apricot trees, grapes and vegetables. He often followed his grandfather to water it. When he saw the newly emerged weeds, he could squat and look at it for a long time.
1996 After 11-year-old Yang Zongzong studied medicinal plants in Kanas Lake, Xinjiang,
, he went to middle school, Yang Zongzong became more obsessed with plants. At the age of 14, he collected a strange plant sporadically distributed in the mountains at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters. The flowers were very small and dense, the sepals were ovate, and the petals were spoon-shaped. When he went home, he searched through various plant books but found no relevant documents, so he had to send the plant specimens to Professor Chen Xinqi, the master of Chinese orchid plants. A month later, Professor Chen wrote back, confirming that this was the newly discovered species "Little Flower Bird's Nest Orchid".
Yang Zongzong's spirit of exploration was quickly fulfilled into honor, the first prize in the National Youth Science and Technology Innovation Competition, the first place in Xinjiang in the "National Middle School Biology League"... When he was in the second year of high school, Yang Zongzong was admitted to School of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University .
But as a partial student, Yang Zongzong's foundation in mathematics, physics and chemistry is weak and cannot keep up with the course. In the second semester of his sophomore year, he chose to leave school. In those years, Yang Zongzong was quite depressed. He burned almost all the books and specimens related to plants. At that time, the most tangled thing he was going up the mountain with his friends. When his friend asked what kind of flower this was, he clearly wanted to take a look in his heart, but he deliberately said, "I don't know, I won't study plants now." After
, Yang Zongzong worked as a fitness coach and opened a gym, and his life gradually became rich and stable, but the feeling of lack was always with him. In February and March 2014, grandma wanted to move and ask Yang Zongzong to get his own things. In the small room where I lived before, Yang Zongzong found a book called " Chinese Botanical Chronicle " Volume 68.
"I used to swear to stop studying plants, but I found that I still couldn't give up." That night, Yang Zongzong opened the book wrapped in kraft paper and found that the world suddenly became quiet.
"Invisibly there is an additional responsibility for inheritance."
lost and regained it, making Yang Zongzong cherish his feelings with plants more and more. Once, when I bought "Kazakhstan Botanical Chronicle" from a foreign website, the book cover and pages were all knocked off, so he learned to repair and bind the book by himself, dipped it in latex, and stick it one by one. He bought several large stacks of white jam paper for making specimens, and went to the mountains to collect specimens every weekend. In the past, he preferred those beautiful ones, but now he is more willing to collect those difficult ones. "It may not be lost for no reason, so it seems that I can be more immersed and more missionary." In 2017, Yang Zongzong went to ask for advice from botanist Mr. Shen Guanmian, and the old man passed away not long afterwards. Yang Zongzong was very sad and felt that "there was an invisible responsibility for inheritance."
In those years, the reality has gradually become more serious. Yang Zongzong went to take pictures of Xinjiang tulip and found that many people were digging. He told them that the white bulbs contain colchicine . Eating too much is easy to get poisoned. But they said: "What tulip ? This is a wild vegetable. How many years have we eaten?"
Tianshan tulip
Many people know nothing about plants and lack understanding of some endangered species. For example, Fukang Asafoetidae was spread throughout the central part of Yili in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was spoiled and sold due to its high medical and economic value. By 2016, when Yang Zongzong decided to find Fukang Asafoetidae, it had been marked as "extinct" on Baidu . Yang Zongzong searched for it for three years before finally finding a few seedlings on the land of origin that had been reclaimed into farmland.
These two things deeply touched Yang Zongzong. He realized that studying plants cannot just focus on the wilderness and study, but also need to face the crowd.
"The relationship between plants and people is recent. Whether it is food, clothing, viewing, or greening, it has its participation, but people pay the least attention to plants." In Yang Zongzong's eyes, it is more difficult to do plant popularization than animal popularization. "Panda, snow leopard , and monkeys have their own characteristics and their own attributes, which can affect people's feelings. However, plants are neutral. Humans' focus is only on whether they look good and whether they can eat them. So I want to tell you the story behind it and why we should protect it."
In 2017, Yang Zongzong founded the Nature Botanical Society and devoted himself to the popularization of plant science education. Last year, he collaborated with two like-minded friends to publish the "Illustrated Book of Wild Hydrovascular Plants in Northern Xinjiang" - this is the first time that the National Science and Technology Academic Book Publishing Fund has supported a private individual group to write a book in 24 years since its establishment. Yang Zongzong urgently wanted people to accept real knowledge. He said: "What we want to popularize is not only the practicality of plants, but also its ecological value and its importance to society and the destiny of the entire earth."
Do popular science on short videos
In 2021, Yang Zongzong settled in TikTok. Since May this year, he has not only explained plants, but also posted his process of finding plants on his account. Although most of the successful cases are presented, in fact, every time you shoot, you have half the chance of returning in vain.
For example, on July 21, Yang Zongzong and his partner Lei Yiming looked for Altai Snow Lotus in in Altay Region, a place called Sandaohaizi . The car was unable to move forward when it reached the checkpoint. The two could only crawl on the gravel slope with their hands and feet. When they finally reached the glacier with an altitude of 3,000 meters, there was still no trace of snow lotus . The two decided to act separately, but not long after, Yang Zongzong encountered the two or three meters high Stonehenge. Stonehenge is a square kilometer or two, like a maze. At this time, it was already seven o'clock, and the sun was about to set. The wind was getting stronger and stronger, and rock thunderbird was flying overhead. Yang Zongzong did not find Lei Yiming, so he had to retreat, but he could not find a companion along the way. He was picked up by a bear and rolled down the hillside... Yang Zongzong felt many bad results. Later, he walked to the valley under the glacier and saw a moving figure on the opposite hill.
"After setting off, surprises and disappointments are always half of each." Yang Zongzong said, "So our videos are always unknown, without scripts, without copywriting, and recording the real situations that happened on the scene."In the
video, Yang Zongzong often appeared in sports T-shirts. Because of the long journey, he was always panting when introducing plants. Sometimes he squatted on the ground, sometimes lying on the cliff, sometimes telling the story, and sometimes he was incoherent because of ecstasy.
Yang Zongzong gradually discovered that this direct expression did not affect the impression, but instead played the advantage of short videos. "Short videos are intuitive and vivid, and are especially suitable for plants, because the plants themselves will not move, so through dynamic display, people can better accept it. And it records the process of our exploration, with surprises and disappointments, and people can empathize. "Yang Zongzong said, "For example, in these few episodes of shooting snow lotus, I was very excited, and I left a message saying that I was also very excited when I heard it. I felt that everyone might be able to feel how important the plant is and how much effort a person has to put in to find it. I will definitely not pick it when I see it in the future. I think this is also a kind of effect of popular science. "
Yang Zongzong not only wanted to make the Douyin account a one-way output science popularization class, but also wanted to make it a communication platform for plant enthusiasts. Some people said that they were not interested in it at the beginning, but after watching a few more videos, they fell in love with plants; some people sent private messages saying "I finally found the organization"; there was also a child who participated in the science and technology competition with purslane as the topic to ask for advice. Yang Zongzong not only gave professional advice, but also asked him to send questions he didn't understand to the fan group and mobilized everyone to solve them together. Regarding knowledge sharing, Yang Zongzong's attitude has always been generous and open: "I hope to form various discussions through Douyin to influence people at more levels. "
Today, Yang Zongzong has long regarded plants as the fire of life. He gave up his career in the gym, and his income mainly relies on the support of public welfare foundations, study courses and nature tourism guides, and occasionally undertakes survey projects by some official institutions.
Yang Zongzong visits Wang Wencai Academician
In the past eight years, he has discovered a total of 8 new species, of which 5 new species have been published jointly with Academician Wang Wencai. For him , This is as excited as discovering an asteroid in the universe. Although it has always existed, a man named Yang Zongzong confirmed its existence - "It's like the feeling of giving birth to it."
Plants also comfort Yang Zongzong in their own way. Every time they feel unhappy, he will sit in the studio and make specimens under a small yellow desk lamp.
He said: "Plants are very quiet and do not compare, they are slow, they only live in the place where they should grow. In order to reproduce the future generations, it has evolved many skills, which is also an inspiration for people - when we decide to do something, if we cannot change the harsh environment, then adapt to it and make ourselves stronger. "This is the case with plants, and so is Yang Zongzong.
Source: China News Weekly
