Professor He Shan'an examines apple trees on a recent visit to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, where he hopes one day to see a new botanical garden that can document the plants of western China. Provided to China Daily

Mother of all gardens

Tourists view Chinese roses in Beijing Botanical Garden

"Actually, I'm not a plant guy. I'm an eater! From middle school until I was going into university, I had no idea what I wanted to do."

He came from a large family and his six siblings became engineers, a literature specialist and a chemist. One brother went to the military.

"My father wanted diversity in the family," He says.

"So when my time came to go to university, he said: 'What about agriculture - good for you?'"

It has been very good for He, who's revered by peers at home and abroad as a godfather of botanical gardens in China. His CV lists dozens of important publications, positions and committees, as well as research in fields from citrus to olives to medicinal and endangered plants.

He smiles when asked if plant-collecting in the wild is an exciting adventure, waving away notions of Indiana Jones-like characters hacking their way through remote jungles. But the 1980 trek for the visiting US scientists had some unexpected drama.

"There was a big worry about the safety of our foreign guests - it wasn't clear who was responsible for that," He says, with a big smile.

"So the authorities did something unprecedented: They gave us two guns to take with us!"

That was mostly for protection from animals, not bandits or other criminals, He says.

But he chuckles at the memory of another factor: reports that a Bigfoot-type creature was roaming the forested hills of Shennong-jia in northwestern Hubei province, where the scientific team was heading.

"The joke at the time was that 'Bigfoot' had one foot in California and one in Shennongjia," says He of the fabled bearlike monster.