In China, only a handful of scientists study them. But one researcher has spent more than 40 years building the foundation for lichen science in the country. Tao Yuan reports from Yunnan, a global lichen diversity hotspot.

Up until the mid-19th century, scientists got it wrong. For a long time, lichens were thought to be plants. And in China, the understanding of what they truly are came much later.

PROFESSOR WANG LISONG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences: "Even in the early 1980s, the textbooks we studied still called them "lichen plants."

Wang Lisong is one of few lichen researchers in China. Over the decades, he has traveled to some of the harshest environments in the country to collect specimens and study them.

PROFESSOR WANG LISONG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences: "Lichens are relatively simple organisms. They can't compete with big trees or flowering plants. So, they survive in places like high mountains or the middle of deserts — extreme environments where other life forms cannot survive. That resilience is something I admire very much."

Lichens are known as some of the toughest lives on Earth. They are not one species, but a symbiosis between a fungus and a photosynthetic partner, usually, algae or cyanobacteria. The fungus provides structure and protection. The algae make food using sunlight. But recent studies show it's even more fascinating than just that.

PROFESSOR WANG LISONG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences: "With advances in molecular biology, we now know lichens are not just a fungus and an alga living together. Other fungi and microorganisms are also involved in forming this biological system. But importantly, it is genetically stable and able to reproduce continuously, which means it exists as an independent species. Its structure is extremely complex, and even now, we still don't fully understand it scientifically."

At the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Lisong has helped build a world-class lichen herbarium. More than 100,000 specimens are stored here and 80-percent were collected by Wang himself. But it didn't start as a grand plan. This was China's First Tibetan Plateau scientific expedition. Wang Lisong was just a 17-year-old boy, a young worker who helped the scientists manage the specimens.

PROFESSOR WANG LISONG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences: "We collected huge numbers of specimens. At the time, I didn't know what lichens were. I just collected whatever I saw."

When the teams returned from the field, plant specimens were taken. Fungi were taken. But the lichens were left behind. Nobody was sure what to do with them because they didn't belong to any of the categories.

PROFESSOR WANG LISONG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences: "At first, you could just leave the specimens in a corner. But once there were dozens of boxes, everything became chaotic. So, I said, 'Let me give it a try.' And that try lasted 40 years."

At the time, there were few lichen experts in China and almost no Chinese-language research material. He taught himself, even earning a degree in English literature just to read the publications. Along the way, it grew from a job to a passion.

PROFESSOR WANG LISONG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences: "When you observe lichens closely, you begin to see textures and colors unlike anything else. They completely shatter our understanding of color and structure. Under the microscope, you wonder how Mother Nature made them so incredibly delicate and precise."

Even today, lichen research in China is still at a relatively early stage. Scientists in Europe and the US are sending lichens into space, or testing how they survive in Mars-like conditions. Wang Lisong is still out there in the field, climbing trees, crossing rivers, and scraping rock. He says the work is still pretty "basic". But everything starts from here.

PROFESSOR WANG LISONG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences: "I compare the herbarium to a bank. If we don't even know how much money we have in our own hands, then everything else is just empty talk."

China, especially the southwest, is a global lichen diversity hotspot. An estimated 30,000 species of lichens grow here. But less than a tenth is recorded.

PROFESSOR WANG LISONG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences: "The less we study them, the less we understand them. The fewer applications we discover. The less attention they receive. We have such valuable and diverse biological resources here. If we don't study and understand them ourselves, I think that would be a real shame."

At 63 years of age, Wang Lisong has already retired. But he is still trying to reach a personal goal of collecting 100,000 lichen specimens in his lifetime.

PROFESSOR WANG LISONG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences: "I hope to pass these 100,000 specimens on to the next generation, so they can build on them and add even more information. And I believe artificial intelligence will eventually become part of lichen research. But AI needs foundational data. That responsibility falls to us."

And despite the cold, the altitude, or the heat in the desert, Wang Lisong says he has the best job in the world.

PROFESSOR WANG LISONG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences: "When you see the mountains and rivers, and then see these lichens living naturally in those environments, you realize that for these tiny life forms, this is paradise."

And out here, in places where most life can't survive, he found something worth a lifetime. Tao Yuan, CGTN, Yunnan Province. (CGTN)