A renowned book about China's flora has been translated into English and was published in September after a 25-year international effort, said the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Named "Flora of China," the book is the largest of its kind. The Chinese edition of the book is composed of 80 volumes and 125 books, the last of which was published in 2004. China and the United States signed a cooperation agreement in 1988 to compile an English edition of the book, and compilation began in 1989.

According to Peter Raven, President of the Missouri Botanical Garden and chairman of the English edition's editorial board, and Hong Deyuan, the book's associate editor-in-chief and academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the revision and translation work was of a gigantic scale.

The revised English edition of the book is composed of 25 volumes of text and 25 volumes of charts and pictures. It is the biggest and highest-quality English-version book of its kind, said the two scientists.

During the revision and translation work, botanists studied samples that were collected by foreign botanists and explorers in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and preserved in foreign countries.

The work was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology.