"Fuligong means Lychee Palace in English. That was the name of the world's first greenhouse on record. More than 2,000 years ago during the Han Dynasty, China's Emperor Wu had Fuligong built in his northern Royal Garden to cultivate tropical plants."

Plants like these might make you think about how intelligent they really are. They don't have nerve cells or a centralized brain. But they certainly do collect information and strategize in surprising ways. 

Perhaps they deserve more credit, and protection! In a way, they've shaped who we are today. Our ancestors stood upright because of plants. The first humans started using fire not for roast meat, but to break down toxic chemicals in plants. But why should we still study plants today?

A renowned botanist who I had the honor of meeting has this to say.

PROFESSOR HONG DEYUAN Botanist, Chinese Academy of Sciences "If Yuan Longping, the famed Father of hybrid rice, never found the stretch of wild rice on Hainan Island, he wouldn't have been able to develop the high-yielding hybrid strain. If Tu Youyou never came across an inconspicuous plant called the sweet wormwood, she would never have found a cure for malaria. So you tell me what happens if we lost plant diversity. (CGTN)