A pupil of H.H. Hu, Te-Tsun Yu helped to found the Kunming Institute of Botany in Yunnan Province and later became Editor of the Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae (vol.s 36-38, Rosaceae) and Director of the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Yu collected plants in Yunnan Province in 1937, supported by a grant from Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The Arnold Arboretum and Edinburgh both received shipments of some 2,000 numbers from the expedition, all of high quality. In particular, Yu made extensive exploratins in the alpine region of north-west Yunnan, ascending the snow range of the Salween Divide, which few people had previously visited. His collecting work was continued by C.W. Wang.

Towards the end of his life Yu compiled The Botanical Gardens of China, published in 1983. In the late 1970s he was a member of a Chinese botanical delegation visiting America, in particular Michigan State University and Berkeley, California. At Berkeley the American and Chinese botanists discussed possible collaborative projects, including the suggestion of Yu and Cheng-Yi Wu that a second edition of Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae be published in English as the Flora of China. The project was begun in 1987, after Yu's death.

Sources:
Anon., 1938, Arnold Arboretum Bulletin, 6(8): 66-68
H.L. Li, 1945, "Botanical Exploration in China during the last Twenty-Five Years", Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 156(1): 31.