Chinese President HU Jintao, with other senior leaders, presented the 5 million yuan (about 600,000 U.S. dollars) prizes at the annual national science-technology award ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

　　Botanist Wu, 92, a native of eastern Jiangxi Province, has been engaged in botanical research and education for 70 years. "He is an authority in the fields of systematic botany and plant geography as well as plant diversity, conservation and sustainable use of plant resources," the committee remarked.

　　Wu Zhengyi, Senior Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. After graduating from the National Tsinghua University in 1937, Prof. Wu Zhengyi taught at Southwest Union University and Tsinghua University. In 1949, he entered the Chinese Academy of Sciences where he went on to fill a string of prestigious positions, including Member of the Presidium of Academic Divisions of CAS, Deputy Director of the Botany Institute of CAS, Director of KIB, Director of the Kunming CAS, and Director and Professor Emeritus of KIB, his current positions. He has also stood as Deputy Director of the Yunnan Province Science Commission and Chairman of the Yunnan Scientific Association. A pioneer of the botanical sciences and floristics, Prof. Wu has devoted 70 years to the study of botany, penning over 130 articles on a wide range of topics, and writing and editing many monographs on the flora and vegetation of China, Yunnan, and Tibet, including the monumental Flora of China. His remarkable achievements have been awarded on multiple occasions, including eight provincial-level awards, four national-level awards, the International Cosmos Prize (1999), and the Yunnan Province Outstanding Contribution to Science and Technology Award (2001).

　　"He has published research on 1,766 new taxa of plants in his study of plant taxonomy, which makes him the top botanist in China in terms of the number of plants that were discovered and named," the committee said.