Hong De-Yuan is Professor of the State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He is also Chair of the Life Science Division at the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and Dean of the School of Life Science, Zhejiang University. He is author of 'Peonies of the World: Taxonomy and Phytogeography' (Kew Publishing, 2010).