Guangzhou, January 12, 2010(Guangzhou Daily): The award ceremony for the 2009 Annual National Science and Technology Awards was held in Beijing yesterday morning. Universities from Guangdong Province claimed quite a few awards in the event. Flora of Chinawon the first prize of the National Science and Technology Award. 96 year old SYSU Professor Zhang Hongda is member of the editing board of the publication. The first prize of the National Science and Technology Award, which embodies the innovative capacity, has been vacant for 7 years in the past 10 years. No award had been conferred in the last two years.

Flora of Chinacl aimed the only first prize in the 28 awards conferred at the National Science and Technology Award Ceremony. It comprehensively reviews the classification of Chinese flora system, records more than 30,000 kinds of plants, and serves as information repository of Chinese plants.

Botanist Zhang Hongda

Zhang Hongda is a prestigious botanist. He was born in Jiexi, Guangdong, in 1914. He is a distinguished expert in the areas of plant taxonomy, systematics, fauna studies, and community studies. He has proposed the "flora of China" assumption, "the outline of systematic classification of seed plants," and "the world's flora partition", to promote the development of the research of flora of China and system evolution.