The Scientific Vision of Women

Tai-li Zhang was born in Jinzhou, Liao Ning, China, and attended the School of Botanical Painting at the Academia Sinica, graduating in 1959. She spent 28 years working for the Department of Plant Taxonomy, Institute of Botany, and was promoted to associate artist in 1979. Zhang created illustrations for scientific journals and other publications, and her work has been exhibited internationally, including Australia, South Africa, England and the U.S.  

A large portion of Zhang’s career was spent on two ambitious projects to document all plants native to China. Her work was published in the Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae (FRPS) as well as The Flora of China. The FRPS was a project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, which published text and illustrations in Chinese from 1959 until the publication concluded in 2004. The Flora of China was also a multi-decade effort whose goal was to update the FRPS but uniquely involved Chinese as well as foreign botanists. Between 1998 and 2013, Flora published 25 text volumes and 24 companion illustration volumes in Chinese and English. Zhang’s illustrations were included in multiple volumes, including the one shown here. (See similar project in Argentina, in the entry for Juana Fernández de Tuero.)

Label by Meg Brown