Life-Risking Collection Brings Worldwide Fame
    National Geographic came to Taiwan to shoot the documentary series of “Plant Hunter Hung Hsin-chieh,” which went viral on the Internet and got over hundreds of millions clicks all over 95 countries worldwide. The protagonist Hung Hsin-chieh is a dark-skin young man with a reserved personality, working at Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center at present. He has collected plants in the wild for long. Being bitten by poisonous snakes for six times has never dampened his determination to enter the forest. With only a junior high school degree, he is often regarded as the top of the field.
    By risking his life into the deep mountains and on steep cliffs, he picked wild orchids to make a living. CEO Li Chia-wei of Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center exceptionally hired Hung to work with those with master’s degree or PhD degree.  He is even called “Chieh God” by his colleagues.
Top of the World．Completing the Collection of over 20,000 Endangered Plants
    He has completed the things many botanists want to do but can’t do. He can easily jump from a tree to another. With the eyes like a scanner, he can recognize the types and statuses of all plants at a glance.
    He also invented the equipment to dry specimens. The organs of the plants put into liquid nitrogen are instantly frozen at minus 196 degrees Celsius to completely preserve the plant genes for the scientific research of the next generation.
    Hung is not married, and he doesn’t intend to. He said, “One has to be responsible for the marriage. I love to collect plants too much. One day, I may die in the mountains.”
    Therefore, totally understanding his romantic personality, he just accepts to focus on what he loves to do and excels at most. At the age of 44, he found his first steady job in life, the research assistant of Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center. With passion and courage, he is the first one in the world to complete the collection of more than 20,000 endangered plants and make them into more than 20,000 plant specimens at the same time. Through self-learning, he also becomes a botanical painter. The “plant hunter” stood out from 2893 recommended candidates and won “The 24^th Global Fervent Love of Lives Awards” given by Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural & Educational Foundation in 2021.
Becoming a Member of the Academia
    The largest tropical botanic conservation center in the world, Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center, is located at Gaoshu Township, Pingtung County, Taiwan.
     It collects 33,783 species of plants in total. There are only more than 5,000 species of plants recorded in Taiwan. The center has the most plant types of orchids, mosses, and begonia in the world.
    Hung, aged 45, has worked here for more than three years. He is the most special research assistant and plant hunter in the center.
    Hung was born in his hometown, Caotun, Nantou, in 1973. His family made a living by growing rice. When little, he liked to put several rice seedlings with the white-stripe discoloration in the transplanter (which had little effect on the crops). Among the uniform rice fields covered with green seedlings, the fields of his family showed the unique beauty.
    Hung’s gardening skill was also developed at that time. Every month, the publication of Farmers’ Seeds sent to his house became his gardening textbooks. He made experiments on the farm whenever there were new species introduced in the publication.
    In a hectare of land, he sometimes grew more than ten short-term crops including vegetables, tomatoes, gourds, and beans. It is not easy compared with growing a single crop. He often slept only four or five hours a day, but he found pleasure in it.
     Hung loves the rare things and follows the “rare” philosophy of life. “Everyone works for money. It’s ordinary. I have no money, but working is fun for me. It is rare!” Understanding that his romantic personality will not fit in the business world, he just accepts to focus on what he loves to do and excels at.
    Before “Solomon Islands Project,” Hung had joined in all kinds of large plant resource surveys.
    For example, from 2008 to 2013, he joined the fourth national forest resource survey team of Forestry Bureau and made surveys in the divided sample areas in the different forestlands of Taiwan.
    In 2009, invited by National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarian, he joined a group of researchers to survey the natural resources on Lesser Orchid Island. He was responsible for searching for the terrestrial plants.
    Hung’s name can often be seen in the academic reports and research papers even though he never engages in the writing part.
     The name “Hung Hsin-chieh” is included in the list of authors in many botanical research papers to highlight his importance as the first finder of the plants. Some are found again after nearly hundred years (such as Vaginularia trichoidea Fée). Some are the newly recorded species (such as Asplenium crinicaule). Many new species are even not published yet.
    Among these achievements, what Hung is most proud of is the finding of Eria robusta (Bl.) Lindl again. It is even harder than to find the new records and new species in plant taxonomy!
    Invited by his friend, Hung became the author of the professional book for the first time. The botanist, Zhong Shi-wen, of Forestry Research Institute planned a series of eight books, Illustrated Flora of Taiwan. Volume No.8 on ferns is written by Hung Hsin-chieh and Chen Zheng-wei.
    In 2019, the two books of Volume No.8 were published, but Hung turned in the manuscripts in 2014. He is responsible for depicting the basic information of the 729 types of ferns, and Chen Zheng-wei edited it and added more details.
First Steady Job in Life at the Age of 44
    After retiring from the military service at the age of 23, Hung did all kinds of part-time jobs, such as landscape engineering, historic building restoration, and forest resource survey. But he never found a steady one.
    Finally, he found the first steady job in life when he was 44, becoming the plant hunter of Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center.
    The chance to get the job was a mission called “Solomon Islands Project.”
     Solomon Islands on South Pacific Ocean have the rich tropical plants. After the exploitation of rainforest, the plants gradually lost the habitats. The conservation center spared no effort to bring back these plants for conservation.
    In the first two years of the project, Hung was recommended by the friends in the conservation center. However, with only the junior high school degree, he was rejected by International Cooperation and Development Fund.
    Afterwards, the number of the collected plants by the team was unsatisfying. Therefore, the friends tried to let Hung join them. It was surprising that Hung’s personal collection was more than half of the collection of all team.
    “For me, walking on the trees is like on the plain. I can walk and scan the plants like a scanner. I can clearly see the flowering plants, fruiting plants, and spore bearing plants at a glance without collecting the repeated ones.”
    Therefore, Prof. Li Chia-wei, CEO of Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center, invited Hung to officially become a member of the center. “Hung is familiar with the wild of Taiwan—remote islands and high mountain forests. He clearly knows where the species are. He is the most suitable person to find the endangered and rare species and do the frontline rescue.”
Studying Senior High School at the Age of 41 and Becoming a Classmate of 17-Year-Old Teenagers
    Hung often jokingly calls himself “a botanist to be.” He deeply knows that he is not qualified to become a plant taxonomist like Xu Tien-quan and Chen Zheng-wei.
     When he was rejected by “Solomon Islands Project” for the low-level education, Hung was 41 years old. He strived for the last seat of the night school of Department of Horticulture, Yuanlin Agricultural and Industrial Vocational High School, and returned to school to receive the regular education.
    The subject of horticulture is what he excels at, but he has to start from scratch in terms of the other basic subjects including Chinese, English, math and chemistry. When it comes to math, it is his greatest obstacle. This makes him understand his position more. “I have no idea about numbers. I am not good at studying. I will never become a botanist in my life. But I can help them with all my abilities by recording the collected specimens and providing the firsthand information. This is what I can do.”
    After finishing five semesters, Hung was forced to suspend school because he had too many personal leave days in the last semester.
    He didn’t regret for it. Going to school helped him correct many concepts. He also got the professional certificate of Class C Technician for Horticulture. He had the deeper understanding about himself besides acquiring knowledge. The experience is indeed worthwhile.
    Hung also made great progress in his ball point pen drawing skill, which was attributed to his classmates.
    In every class, he was almost the only student who listened to the teacher. For several times, he got irritated because of others’ noise. To calm himself down, he started to draw.
     Painting has been his pastime since little. These years he has started to try the skill of multi-color overlay by making use of the ball point pens of various colors to weave the image carefully stroke by stroke. He even creates the unique watercolor-like shading technique. His friends all praise his talent.
When a Hunter Meets a Scientist
    Hung Hsin-chieh met Li Chia-wei, Professor of NTHU and CEO of Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center, for the first time in April, 2017.
    At that time, the conservation center team and the photography team of National Geographic searched for the rare and endangered plants in Solomon Islands. Hung was also one of them as he had followed the research team of National Museum of Natural Science to survey and collect plants in the Pacific forest from 2015.
    Hung’s collecting and climbing skills deeply impressed Li. Once they saw a giant club moss hanging on a 25-meter tall tree. Before the local young man plucked up the courage, 44-year-old Hung climbed up the tree and got it. Asked how he learned to climb trees, he said, “You can do it, too. Every one of us can climb a tree.” He believes that humans are born with the “genes of climbing trees” from the ape ancestors. He just uses the gift more often than ordinary people.
    When he was a child in school, Hung had fun climbing up the bamboo poles and the roof. After graduating from junior high school, he became an apprentice of electrical engineering at construction sites. Without using the aluminum ladders, he could climb up the utility poles to install electrical cables. After retiring from military service, Hung engaged in the job of historic building restoration and stayed even longer on the roof. While others felt frightened to walk on the high truss, he walked as if on the ground.
    He is also a master of climbing tree. To look for the rare plants, he climbs the trees from the large and small forests in Taiwan, Karst Stone Forest in northern Vietnam, the jungles in southern Vietnam, to the tropical rain forest of Solomon Islands.
     “I’ve collected more than 3,000 plant specimens on Solomon Islands and made the record!” Hung talked about this proudly. It doesn’t include the other plants that haven’t been made into specimens. All these achievements depend on his sharp observation and agility in the wild for long years.
    In the face of the unseen exotic plants, he can recognize the external differences of the different plants based on his past experience and knowledge to avoid collecting the repeated species.
    Valuing Hung’s ability, the major researchers in National Museum of Natural Science’s “Solomon Islands Plant Survey and Field Guide Project,” Chen Zheng-wei and Xu Tien-quan, fully supported his participation when the project was behind schedule.
    The two researchers met Hung, about ten years older than them, when they were in college. They often looked for plants in the mountains together and exchanged what they had learned.
    Hung said bluntly and confidently: “Zheng-wei is my fern teacher. Tien-quan is my orchid teacher. As for collecting plants in the wild, I am their teacher!”
    When he was 17, Hung looked for plants in the wild alone. At that time, orchids were the treasure in his eyes.
     Never going to any botany class, he taught himself plant identification by buying many illustration handbooks of plants in order to learn more about orchids. He could enumerate many classics written by the orchid expert, Zhou Zhen, Prof. Lin Tsan-piao of Institute of Plant Biology, NTU, and Prof. Ying Shao-shun, retiring from Department of Forestry, NTU.
    He always went to the wild with a camera to capture the rare beautiful orchids. Once he took the good photos, he would post them on the famous online plant forum, “Gardening Eye” and share with those with the same interest. He was acquainted with Xu Tien-quan because of Eria robusta (Bl.) Lindl at that time.
    When Hung found the orchid, he thought it a new species. After seeing his photo on the website, Xu recognized it as Eria robusta (Bl.) Lindl.
    The orchid is rarely known to people. After looking for some information, he found himself the third finder after the botanists, Yamamoto Yoshimatsu and Su Hong-jie.
    Recalling when he first met Xu, he didn’t expect the “great master” to be only a teenager, which deeply impressed him.
From Making a Living by Stealing Plants to Loving Plants as Much as Life
    Hung has loved to pick plants outsides and grown them at home since little.
    When he was 17, he met an orchid dealer, who sold several new year’s orchids (Cymbidium sinensis Willd) and bought a new motorcycle with the money.
    Finding the profits, Hung, from a poor family, started to stealthily pick plants to sell. He also went to the deep mountains and steep cliffs to pick wild orchids.
    The more plants he picked, the more he fell in love with the plants in the wild.
    To understand what the plants are called and where they grow, he had the illustration handbooks beside his bed and in the bathroom. He even memorized the whole books. Then he started to stop selling plants. “I am reluctant to sell what I’ve picked by myself.”
    In 2009, when doing the resource survey on Lesser Orchid Island in east Taiwan, Hung found a rare orchid called “Phalaenopsis equestris,” which had been regarded as an extinct species.
    A businessman offered a price of NT$50,000 to buy it, but Hung refused. Afterwards, he donated the orchid to the conservation center so that the orchid could be reproduced.
    “Most people focus on the value of plants for appreciation or for use. I only want to know what it is and when it will blossom and bear fruit. I can’t hold my desire to keep looking for plants, so I keep collecting plants without thinking about money.”
    In 2005, Hung rent a garden of 9,000 square meters to grow plants. He also lived in the greenhouse, where up to 3,000 species of plants were grown. The electricity bill was about NT$60,000 every month. He had to do part-time jobs and spent all the money on plants. Sometimes he didn’t have money to eat.
Not Afraid of Snake Biting and Bee Sting ‧ Alone in the Forest for Hundred Days
    Hung spends about more than 100 days in the forest every year. At present, he has two major parts of work. One is to pick the endangered plants to reproduce. The other is to collect the specimens to record the plants in the environment so as to protect the environment.
    The plant labels of the conservation center are white, but Hung’s labels are orange. He hopes to know whether others take good care of the plants he picks at a glance.
     If he goes to the mountains for three days, he usually has to carry a load of 20 kg. When returning from the mountain, the load together with the collected plants will become 40 kg. He also has to handle the plants after finding the place to camp.
    The plants which are dried into specimens will have the better quality. Therefore, Hung usually handles the plants until midnight and even 2’oclock in the morning and keeps climbing the mountain and collecting plants on the next day.
    There are no signs in the mountains, so it’s easy to get lost. When Hung got lost for the first several times, he cried. But he got used to it afterwards.
    For him, he will never feel starved in the forest. There are many plants and insects to eat. Even on rainy days, he only needs a tissue paper to make fire.
     Recollecting the experiences of being bitten by snakes when collecting plants, there were at least six times. In August, 2018, he was bitten by a green bamboo viper on Orchid Island. His hand swelled larger than bread and hurried to the local health center for help. He was also hospitalized for fifteen days because of Scrub Typhus.
    The most dangerous experience was picking a Vanda lamellata Lindl on Orchid Island growing on the steep cliff of 90 degree. He spent one hour going up and another hour getting down.
    Recalling that experience, Hung said, “The most difficult is to get down. I looked at it at the highest point for a long time, smoked five or six cigarettes, and finally plucked my courage to get it.”
    Vanda lamellata Lindl is seriously engendered. There are only 20-30 left in the world. Hung said it should be the easiest one to pick. The rest can’t be reached by any mammals except for flying birds.
Feeling Richest when Alone in the Mountains
    The dream to become a botanist looks unreachable. But Hung has gotten over it. Even though he calls himself “a botanist to be,” he is not sure about it. As he keeps looking for plants, he is actually looking for himself.
     “I feel the forest is most suitable for me, with a dreamlike and rich feeling. In the society, I am impoverished. In the forest, all the things common people can’t see are like my collection. I will imagine they belong to me. By imagining a tree of three thousand years old is mine, I feel rich.”
    In recent years, the habitats of tropical plants have been damaged. It is basically estimated that one-third of the plant species will go extinct at the end of the century. The work of the conservation center is to race with the speed of extinction. By bringing back and taking care of them, it keeps the biodiversity in the world.
    At present, the conservation center is engaging in the project of “Hundred Species Prosper Action.” The team selects a batch of collected endangered plants, expects to reproduce them into 100-1000 plants in three years, and then transplants them to the original habitats or the major botanical gardens in the world.
    These plants will be useful if humans rebuild a destroyed eco system in the future. With the conserved plants, there will be the chances for animals and other resources.
    The fascination and craze for plants used to bring him the bad name of mountain rat and orchid thief. However, on the trip to Solomon Islands, Li Chia-wei introduced him to the camera by saying “our plant hunter!” The picking experience in the wild for more than twenty years all came to his mind suddenly and touched him. At that moment, he realized that the deep meaning had always existed in the simple search without regrets for the rare plants in the world.
    Hung keeps updating his posts about plants on Facebook. He introduces himself by writing: “I like plants, look for plants, grow plants, paint plants, eat plants, and photograph plants.” The simple words are just what he is.

Top | Back