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Wu Jieh Yee Charitable Foundation has made a generous donation of HK$8 million to The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in support of the research, education and social service programmes of the Shiu-Ying Hu Herbarium. Located on the Chinese University campus, the Herbarium is an important facility established by the late Prof. Hu Shiu-ying, Honorary Professor of Chinese Medicine and Honorary Senior Research Fellow of the School of Life Sciences. To recognize Professor Hu’s lifelong devotion and contributions to botanical research, CUHK has the Herbarium named after Professor Hu and will continue Professor Hu’s efforts in documenting plant biodiversity and exploring its economic uses. 

The Shiu-Ying Hu Herbarium houses a collection of about 38,000 plant specimens, mostly collected and archived by Professor Hu. The herbarium is registered in the Index Herbariorum, a global directory of public herbaria managed by the New York Botanical Gardenin collaboration with the International Association of Plant Taxonomists. It is now situated in the Science Centre of the University and will be relocated to the planned new Centralized General Research Laboratory Complex, with its role and functions further strengthened. The generous donation from Wu Jieh Yee Charitable Foundation will be incorporated into the endowment fund of the Herbarium, to support its research, education and social service programmes, including but not limited to collection and preservation of protected native flora, research on authentication of economic and medicinal plants, digitization of the existing collection to form an online botanical information database, establishment of a visitor centre and public website, as well as organization of various courses, public lectures and volunteer programmes to promote botanical research and transfer knowledge to the community. 

Professor Hu was a botanist of great international renown. Having dedicated her life to research on plant taxonomy, she produced over 160 academic treatises and collected over 30,000 specimens. In the process, she came to be affectionately known as a walking botanical dictionary. Prof. Chu Ka Hou, Director of the School of Life Sciences, CUHK remarked, ‘Prof. Hu Shiu-ying was a well respected figure among fellow students and colleagues.  Professor Hu’s expertise, botany, is one of the important research areas of the School of Life Sciences.  I would like to thank Wu Jieh Yee Charitable Foundation sincerely for the generaous donation which helps the expansion and enrichment of the Herbarium, and strengthens the research on plant taxonomy and its economic applications for the benefit of mankind.’ 

Dr. Wu Jieh-yee, the Emeritus Chairman of the Board of Wing Lung Bank, founded the Wu Jieh Yee Charitable Foundation in 1982 to help those in need, to promote education and to provide urgent relief. Dr. Wu had been a benefactor of the CUHK since the 1970s, and had supported a lot of meaningful causes at CUHK.

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