Chien was born on 11 November, 1883 to a family of intellectuals in Haining County, Zhejiang Province.

[1] In 1910, he entered the preparatory school of Tsinghua University as a publicly-funded student and went to the United States to study in the same year.

[3][2] In 1933, he participated in the founding of the Botanical Society of China, and after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, he came from Nanjing to Beibei, Chongqing.

He moved back to Shanghai with Fudan University after the end of the World War II.

[3] In October 1959, he established the Flora of China Editorial Board and led its writing until 1965, when he died.