Following the plants of the plateau, our team came to Tibet, where nature unplugged us from the internet and we enjoyed every moment offline. The striking altitudinal zonation of the Himalaya took us not only from down jackets to T-shirts but from alpine meadows to tropical rainforests; in every encounter with plants, life seemed to open new and vivid doors for plants and people.

The plant scientist Wei Ran once said that a botanist is destined to be lonely, because plants do not speak and their secrets take a long time to explore. Ethnobotany studies the relationships between people and plants: local people spend a long time — even generations — learning to know and use the plants around them through their own experience and practice. The Deng people, for example, have their own language but no script or written records; their traditional culture is passed on only orally, and many beautiful folk tales and customs are being lost as their elders pass away.

Taking part in ethnobotanical fieldwork, I felt that the discipline is something of an art that requires a certain talent: when talking with villagers, one must grasp the meaning of their answers and keenly pick out the information we need. Following local people up the mountains to collect specimens, we learned to recognize each plant and its unique diagnostic features, building up a feel for plant morphology.

Learning from senior students along the way, my interest in ethnobotany grew. Immersing myself in local life and seeing wild plants through local eyes — from names in my notebook to living plants in high mountain valleys — I processed the morphological information gathered by my senses until the local knowledge system of plant use took shape in my mind.

Although a cold and fever kept me from following the team to beautiful Lhasa, as someone from Sichuan who had never been to Tibet, I remain full of passion for that mysterious, beautiful, rugged and sun-drenched place closest to the sky that I had always dreamed of visiting.

The simplicity and warmth of the Tibetan people left a deep impression on me. I remember our first visit to the Deng people in Zayü County, when an old man in his seventies vividly told us how his people eat and use wild plants. A local university student acted as our interpreter, and my notebook filled with Deng names of wild plants and their traditional uses. At that moment our shared exploration of wild plants seemed to break through the language barrier, and a seed of passion took root.

The courage and kindness of the Tibetan people also gave me great strength. In Beibeng Township of Mêdog County, where the climate is hot and snakes and insects abound, hard-working people strive to build a better life with their own hands. The village party secretary said something in passing that moved me deeply: “We too are guardians of the border.” Indeed, under the leadership of the Party and the government, ethnic minority people are confident and enterprising, steadfast guardians of the sacred land and builders of happy homes.

Before I turned 22 I had always dreamed of going to Tibet to meet a braver version of myself. The Tibet of my imagination was full of prayer flags, crystal-clear skies, free-roaming sheep and clouds, and travellers pursuing their dreams on the road. When I actually set foot in Tibet and came to know it from an ethnobotanical perspective — connecting the people who have lived there for generations with their environment and seeing plants through their eyes — I no longer looked only at differences in vegetation at different altitudes or the colourful variability of alpine plants, but with curiosity and reflection learned about plants and their relationship with people from local practices and history. It also made me think more deeply about what plants mean for life.

In-depth fieldwork, interviewing local people about their experience and wisdom in using plants and recording the distinctive plant cultures of different peoples, forms the essence of ethnobotany and points to the generative relationship between life and plants. I believe that it is precisely such immersive observation, interviews, learning and collection that can open up another vivid and fascinating world of botany beyond conventional botanical research, and continue telling stories of plants and people. As Prof. Pei Shengji intended when founding the Ethnobotany Branch, the many scientists it has trained will carry ethnobotany to every corner of the world, following in the footsteps of their predecessors and taking new theory and research further afield…

I thank the warm-hearted people of Tibet who helped us on this journey, the dedicated young village officials and the brave border police… and our team: the reliable and professional Xiaoyong, the caring and steady Lin Lei, our trustworthy and humorous driver, and all the companions who supported one another. The monsoon from the Indian Ocean is still blowing towards the Himalaya, and many more stories of plants and people await our discovery.