Chinese botanist, known as the father of Chinese pteridology. Wrote the first complete monograph of Chinese Ferns. He published over 160 articles and monographs, as well as 15 translations.
Developed the Ren-Chang Ching System for ferns. In 1940, Ren-Chang Ching published the Natural Classification System of Polypodiaceae, in which he divided plants of Polypodiaceae into 33 families and 249 genera, and proposed 5 evolutionary clues (Xing, 1994). His system ended the conservative classification system of Joseph Dalton Hooker and solved the biggest problem of fern botany at that time, which made great contributions to the worldwide fern taxonomy.
Became interested in botany when studying at the First Agricultural School in Jiangsu Province. After graduation, he attended the University of Nanking and got a bachelor degree in forestry.
Ren-Chang, went on to work as an assistant at Southeast University and later got a job with the Natural History Museum of Academia Sinica.
In 1929, he began researching ferns at the Botany Museum at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). After returning to China, he worked as a researcher at the Institute of Hydrobiology in Peiping. In 1934, he was sent to Jiangxi to establish the Lushan Botanical Garden and became its director.
During the War of Resistance against Japan, he established a fern research center in Kunming. From 1945, he became an associate professor at the Department of Forestry and Biology of Yunnan University.
In 1949, he also became the Deputy Director of the Forestry Bureau of Yunnan Province.
In order to study ferns he learned English, French, Latin, and other languages.
He took over 18,300 photographs of fern patterns.
