Abstract
Abstract The history of a large collection of Chinese fungi at Cornell University, repatriated to Beijing in 2009, can be traced back to 1928. From this year the Cornell-trained mycologist Deng Shuqun began to send specimens of Chinese fungi and his publications to Cornell, while benefiting from Cornell’s support for his research on fungi and for the acquisition of scientific literature. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 he contributed to the shipment of fungal specimens to both the United States Department of Agriculture and Cornell University. The relocation of the specimens from China to the USA, arising from scientific purposes, facilitated the integration of the local natural world into the international scientific landscape. It was the fruit of trans-Pacific scientific interaction based on goodwill and reciprocity, especially in wartime. Behind it lay the interplay of patriotism and scientific internationalism, which sustained the agency of China’s first-generation biologists, as well as the intersection between science and politics.