Improper citation in part of the Kerria japonica article: Apology statement regarding "Speechless, Yet Longing"

On the evening of May 26, a netizen left a comment under the article "Speechless, Yet Longing," pointing out:

In the article "Speechless, Yet Longing," the description of mixing "yamabuki-iro" using traditional Chinese painting pigments, as well as the textual research in the annotations to "The Pillow Book" regarding how Kerria japonica petals echo the line "Speechless, yet longing," were both quoted from the article "Yang Yueying: Tangdi and Ditang," but the source was not indicated in the footnotes.

Therefore I must admit that my improper citation crossed the boundary between reference and inspiration on one side, and infringement and plagiarism on the other.

Here, I sincerely apologize to Yang Yueying, author of the article "Yang Yueying: Tangdi and Ditang," as well as to Teacher Yang Yueying and the loyal readers and fans of "Plant Illustrated."

At the same time, I am also very grateful for Teacher Yang's article. The story in "The Pillow Book" about Kerria japonica petals conveying feelings of longing has made me appreciate even more the independent charm of plants in carrying human emotions. In order to let more people know this story, I included it as part of this article, and found the original text of "The Pillow Book" to supplement the relevant content.

I will be more careful when writing articles in the future. Once again, I apologize to Teacher Yang and everyone.

Jianghan Tangtang

May 27, 2018

First of all, I need to apologize to Teacher Yang Yueying's loyal readers and fans. As the editor-in-chief of the official account, I handled this incident improperly.

In the four years since the "Plant Illustrated" official account began operating, protecting intellectual property has always been one of the parts I am most proud of: I require that in the text portion of articles, any quotation must be attributed; for the image portion, almost all are original, and if it is unavoidable to use images from the internet, I always use CC0 images or images that are clearly permitted for use, and indicate the author and source.

Therefore, when the evidence was insufficient, I thought this was just troll behavior by the critics and did not take it seriously.I used extreme language toward the critics, which to a certain extent led to the escalation of the situation. Here, I offer my sincere apologies to Yang Yueying, author of the article "Yang Yueying: Tangdi and Ditang," as well as to her loyal readers and fans.

Jiang Mouren

May 27, 2018