Bringing nature to life

The insect specimens are kept in the cabinets alongside the plants.

Lu Fan, the laboratory technician of the life sciences school at the university, and the man in charge of the plant specimens, says: "We have more than 100,000 plant specimens, of which 80,000 are certified by experts. Precious plants, like cathaya argyrophylla and dove trees are kept in storage."

Lu says 7,000 specimens of European plants in the museum were prepared by French scientists and scholars in the 19th century, brought to Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s, and moved to Fudan University in 1970.

"They are extremely valuable for the study of European flora," he says.

Another highlight of the collection is the Tibetan sea buckthorns, collected from Mount Qomolangma at a height of 5,100 meters above the sea level.

"My colleagues and I searched Tibet, Qinghai and Yunnan for them because they are really small and widely scattered," said Lu.

"I was lucky to have excellent colleagues like Song Zhiping who went to the plateau seven times for rhodiola rosea samples and the late professor Zhong Yang who dedicated his life to seed research. We were a good team," he says.