During April 5 -26, Prof. Markku Hakkinen of Helsinki University Botanical Garden, Finland, came to visit XTBG on invitation. Prof. Markku Hakkinen is a well-known specialist in Musa. He is one of the few people working on the taxonomy of the genus Musa on a large scale and working on sorting out old issues in Musa taxonomy as well as documenting new species and their place in the Musaceae.

While staying in XTBG, Prof. Markku Hakkinen made special field research in the Musa collection and the Herbarium. He helped to sort out and verify some Musa species.

  On April 25, Prof. Hakkinen delivered a lecture titled “An introduction of the wild bananas (Musaceae), introducing the morphological characteristics, distributing areas of the wild bananas in Malaysia, Cambodia, China, Thailand, India etc. He also said that XTBG should enhance the conservation and studies on Musa plants and make full use of their economic values.