China's top honor for natural science has been awarded to the creators of Flora of China. It's the first time the award has been handed out in 7 years.

The four generations of botanists were rewarded at the China Awards for Science and Technology ceremony, for their unswerving efforts spanning eight decades, to compile the encyclopedia. It includes information on all kinds of fruits, vegetables, woods and flowers, as well as plants with the best medicinal properties.

China launched its Flora project in 1959, compiling decades of research from several hundred experts and scholars. The encyclopaedia came off the press in 2004. A famous science magazine noted its scale as "incomparable."

Chen Xinqi, winner of Natural Science Award, said, "The greatest difficulty is that we don't know exactly how many flora resources we have in China. To solve the problem, we have organized thousands of surveys at national, provincial and school levels. The overall number of botanical specimen collected are over 17 million."

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