Source: Overseas Network
National Botanic Gardens Landscape Stone
In 1954, researchers visited Wugong Mountain in Jiangxi.
In 1963, researchers visited Fanjing Mountain in Guizhou.
Hong Deyuan in the office. Photo by Pan Xutao, a reporter of this newspaper
Ye Jianfei conducts field expeditions in Africa.
Tourists are watching peach blossoms.
Tourists tour the Lilac Garden at the National Botanical Garden.
Every spring, when the warm wind blows green branches and awakens the flowers, tourists will come to the vicinity of Beijing Xiangshan to enjoy the flowers and enjoy the spring light. This spring, people found that the once familiar "Beijing Botanical Garden" 5 words are missing, and a new name is engraved on the landscape stone in front of the gate of the botanical garden - the National Botanical Garden.
On April 18, the National Botanical Gardens were officially inaugurated. The National Botanical Garden is based on the existing conditions of the Institute of Botany (South Garden) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Botanical Garden (North Garden), which have been organically integrated through expansion and efficiency, with a total planned area of nearly 600 hectares. The newly formed National Botanical Gardens will collect more than 30,000 species of plants and 5 million specimens of representative plants from five continents.
Recently, our reporter interviewed the National Botanical Garden to record the story of plant protection and scientific research.
Rare species relocated to settle down
The sunlight shines through the green willows and gently sprinkles into the grass, illuminating the purple lilacs, pink peach blossoms, colorful tulips... In the North Garden of the National Botanical Garden, tourists are busy taking photos with various flowers, and some tourists stop by the grass and read the display boards carefully. The on-site staff told reporters: "These display boards are newly replaced, detailing the positioning and characteristics of the National Botanical Garden. ”
The reporter learned that the establishment of a national botanical garden in the capital is a common practice in many countries around the world. The National Botanical Garden is a comprehensive place that mainly carries out ex situ protection and scientific research of plants, and has the functions of science dissemination, garden horticultural display and ecological leisure, is a national plant diversity protection base, and is an important symbol of the sustainable development of a country's economy, science and technology, culture, ecology and society.
The protection of plant resources can be divided into in situ conservation and ex situ conservation. "The construction of a natural protected area system with national parks as the main body is the main form of in situ protection, and the construction of a botanical garden system led by the national botanical garden is the main form of ex situ protection, and the two are indispensable and organically complementary." Zhou Zhihua, deputy director of the Department of Animals and Plants of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, said.
China is one of the countries with the richest plant diversity in the world, with more than 37,000 known higher plant species, accounting for about 1/10 of the world. According to reports, the National Botanical Garden has protected more than 15,000 species of plants in ex situ, of which nearly 1,000 species of rare and endangered plants are protected in ex situ, including more than 300 species of key wild protected plants in the mainland included in the "Directory of Wild Plants under National Key Protection".
When it comes to ex situ conservation, it is impossible not to mention Metasequoia. Metasequoia is the oldest surviving tree species in the world, a "living fossil" of the plant kingdom, and has been planted in large quantities in the north and south gardens of the National Botanical Garden. In the cherry ditch of the north garden of the National Botanical Garden, the largest area of Metasequoia forest in the northern region is planted. Metasequoia forests reflect the rotation of the four seasons: vibrant in spring, lush in summer, forested in autumn, and quiet in winter. Right now, Metasequoia is spitting out new shoots, standing tall and green.
Wang Kang, director of the Science Popularization Museum of the North Garden of the National Botanical Garden, said: "We carry out different scientific research activities for the reasons why plants are endangered. For example, some plants have problems because of seed transmission, some because of pollination problems, and some are not adapted to changes in the ecological environment... We study the endangered mechanism of the plant, then go to the botanical garden to breed, preserve its seeds, branches and pollen, etc., and finally send it back to its origin so that its population can reproduce healthily. ”
According to the plan, the National Botanical Garden will successively complete projects such as the Plant Science Research Center, the Ex situ Conservation Research Center, the Germplasm Resources Preservation Center, the Second Phase of the Herbarium, and the Wuzhou Greenhouse Group, and build 28 special parks.
The National Botanical Garden established in Beijing is an important part of China's national botanical garden system, and China plans to select and build a number of high-level national botanical gardens. The State Forestry and Grassland Administration said that it will work with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other relevant departments, in line with the general idea of overall planning, scientific layout, protection priority, and step-by-step implementation, "mature one, set up one", steadily promote the construction of the national botanical garden system, and gradually achieve the goal of ex situ protection of more than 85% of China's wild native plants and all key protected wild plant species, and form an organic connection and complement with the in-situ protection system with national parks as the main body. Effectively achieve full coverage and sustainable use of plant diversity conservation in China.
Every plant and tree has a story
The South Garden of the National Botanical Garden is just one street away from the North Garden. If the North Garden is guided by aesthetics and pursues the beauty of plants, the South Garden pursues the truth of plants with science as its guide. At noon, the reporter came to the South Park, the sun has changed from harmonious to hot, and the tall trees have become "umbrellas", sheltering the young flowers and plants next to them. The South Garden is laid out according to the classification system of plants, like a textbook that records the evolutionary history of plants.
The staff told reporters that the South Garden has more than 10 special plant exhibition areas and a tropical subtropical plant exhibition room, such as gymnosperms, magnolia peony garden, rosaceae plant area, shell bucket plant area, Materia medica garden, purple weed garden, aquatic and vine plant area, rare and endangered plant area, etc.
The South Zone's exhibition greenhouse is distinctive, home to more than 2,000 species of tropical and subtropical plants. As soon as I entered the greenhouse, my eyes were mottled: tall palm trees, lifting thick leaves upwards; the emerald green Wang Lian lay flat on the water, like a large jade plate; the flytrap crawled, protruding blades shaped like shells... The staff said: "Every grass and tree here has a story. ”
Telling the story to reporters was Dr. Ye Jianfei, a senior engineer at the National Botanical Garden and the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, many of which he and his colleagues collected from around the world. Ye Jianfei's dark skin also seems to confirm that he has been running in the wild for many years.
Along the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, there is an endangered tree species called Jubai, which is an endemic plant of the mainland and a national first-class protected plant, which can grow up to more than 40 meters. In the winter of 2013, Ye Jianfei and his colleagues collected the seeds of giant cypress, planted in the following spring at the National Botanical Garden, which has now grown to more than 5 meters tall. Cauliflower is a national second-class protected plant, which is only distributed in volcanic lava wetlands in haikou, Hainan, on the mainland. Cauliflower has high requirements for water quality and has the title of "water quality monitor". In 2017, Ye Jianfei and his colleagues collected water cauliflower from Haikou and planted it in the greenhouse of the National Botanical Garden, and now it has blossomed and blossomed every year.
Ye Jianfei is not only busy in China, but also leaves the footprints of field expeditions in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Europe, Africa and South America. Madagascar is rich in baobab trees, and there is also a famous "baobab tree avenue", where rows of stout and tall baobab trees plunge into the sky. In 2019, Ye Jianfei came to Madagascar, where his goal is to find seeds from the rare species Limestone Baobab Tree. As the name suggests, this baobab tree grows in limestone regions and is only found in northern Madagascar. This can be bitter Ye Jianfei. The limestone area is sparsely vegetated, and he is exposed to the hot sun in the wild. Be extra careful under your feet, as the limestone is washed by rain for years to form sharp spikes, like a knife. One carelessly, Ye Jianfei stepped on the air, the tip of the rock plunged straight into his calf, and blood splashed out. After a simple bandage, he continued on his way. "At the end of the day, the thorns scraped all the clothes and the tip of the shoe was sharpened into a large hole." Ye Jianfei recalled. Since it was March, the flowering period of the limestone baobab tree had passed, and after more than 10 days of searching, Ye Jianfei found the fruit that had fallen to the ground, the fruit was already somewhat rotten, but fortunately the seeds inside were intact.
In Ye Jianfei's view, the experience in Madagascar is considered arduous, but it is not dangerous, and the real danger occurs in Peru. Also in 2019, Ye Jianfei came to Peru to collect plant species. He was attracted by an ant tree seven or eight meters high, the stem of which was hollow and where red ants lived inside the trunk. Ye Jianfei intended to cut a branch with flowers as a specimen. He was wary of the red ants and prepared to make a quick decision, but he still underestimated the speed of the red ants, and several red ants crawled down the scissors to him, burrowed into his eyes and nostrils and bit, and Ye Jianfei rolled on the ground in pain. "Red ants are so toxic that I almost went into shock after being bitten by them." Ye Jianfei still has lingering palpitations. He washed the bite with soapy water and rested for more than an hour before slowly getting up from the ground. To Ye Jianfei's relief, he finally brought the ant tree specimen back to the National Botanical Garden.
"The National Botanical Gardens should have an international perspective and collect representative plants from major regions of the world." Ye Jianfei said. It is understood that the National Botanical Garden will focus on collecting native plants in the three northern regions of China, representative plants of the northern temperate zone, representative plants of different geographical divisions of the world and rare and endangered plants, covering 80% of the families and 50% of the genera of Chinese plant species, accounting for 10% of the world's plant species.
Botanists work hard
The establishment of the National Botanical Garden in Beijing is the fervent expectation of botanists.
As early as 1954, 10 young scientists from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences wrote to Chairman Mao Zedong proposing to build a state-level Beijing Botanical Garden. In 1956, the State Council approved the establishment of the Beijing Botanical Garden, which was jointly managed by the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Gardens and Forestry. After decades of development, the construction of Beijing Botanical Garden has made remarkable achievements, laying a solid foundation for the establishment and construction of the National Botanical Garden.
The Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the oldest comprehensive plant science research institution in mainland China, where generations of botanists have worked hard.
At the end of the 1940s, botanists Hu Xianhua and Zheng Wanjun jointly published a paper to name Metasequoia and subvert the view that "Metasequoia plants have long been extinct", shaking the world. On February 17, 1962, the People's Daily published the scientific poem "Metasequoia Song" written by Hu Xianhua, a researcher at the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, commemorating the discovery of Metasequoia.
In the 1970s, researchers at the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences used rice, corn, wheat and other materials to successfully cultivate callus or regenerated plants, reaching the international leading level.
In the 1980s, in an artificial climate box at the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, regenerated plants cultivated from maize protoplasts grew three tender green leaves, which was a breakthrough in bioengineering technology research at that time. In 1989, the overseas edition of the People's Daily reported on this under the title of "The World's First Naked Cell Regenerated Corn Plants Came Out".
"The National Botanical Garden is a national plant science research and exchange center, a strategic plant resource reserve, an ex situ protection base for endangered plants and a plant science dissemination center, and its strong scientific research strength is the strong support of the national botanical garden." Wang Xiaoquan, director of the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that without scientific research, the ability to excavate plant resources will be lost, and the protection of ex situ will be blind, and scientific and reasonable protection measures cannot be formulated.
At present, the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has 5 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Hong Deyuan is one of them. In a quiet and quaint office building in the south garden of the National Botanical Garden, the reporter met with 85-year-old Hong Deyuan.
Since entering the university at the age of 20, Hong Deyuan has been exploring the world of plants, and later focused on the taxonomy of peonies and peonies. He was physically tough and mentally strong, and looked much younger than his peers. When he talked about "peony" and "peony medicine", his eyes flashed, talked about excitement, and even more took the case, flipped through the desk to find out the relevant works, and explained to the reporter while comparing. He said: "Where there are peonies and peonies, there is Hong Deyuan." ”
In 2017, in search of peonies, 80-year-old Hong Deyuan climbed the Himalayas despite his family's persuasion and spent the night in Longzi County, Tibet, over a 5,025-meter-high yakou. This was his 7th visit to Tibet.
In 1965, Hong Deyuan encountered a dangerous situation when he first entered Tibet. That year, he was a graduate student and joined the mudslide expedition in Guxiang, Bomi County, Tibet. The group set off from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, in several grain trucks, to Bomi, via the Nu River Valley. The vehicle was driving on the cliff slope, the winding road was narrow, in a "zigzag" shape, encountered a sharp bend, Hong Deyuan saw, a car rushed forward. The driver slammed on the brakes, quickly hit the steering wheel to dodge, but unexpectedly, a wheel deviated from the road and hung in mid-air, below which was a kilometer of abyss and rushing water.
Mr. Hong said he would never forget the scene: the wheels were emitting white smoke due to the huge friction, and the driver was sweating like rain. After a long time, the driver calmed down and slowly reversed the car back onto the road.
Peony and peony, also known as "two absolute in flowers", belong to the same peony family of paeonocarpies and are important medicinal plants. In order to carry out the classification of peony and peony, Hong Deyuan climbed high mountains and deep valleys, and went to the northern temperate zone of Eurasia and the western part of North America where there were peonies and peonies.
"There are 34 kinds of peonies and peonies in the world. I have field-tested 33 species, only one peony that grows in Algeria, and I have not done fieldwork. Hong Deyuan said. In fact, he applied twice to travel to Algeria, but for security reasons, he was unable to make the trip. In desperation, Hong Deyuan could only ask a friend to pick specimens from the local area and mail them to him.
Not long ago, the English academic monograph "World Peony and Peony (The Third Part of the Series)" edited by Hong Deyuan was finally published, and the first two parts published in 2010 and 2011 constituted "Three Golden Flowers", which constituted the most complete and "rooted" family tree of the world's peony plants. The entire editing work lasted more than 20 years.
"Why are you obsessed with the taxonomic study of plants?" The reporter asked.
"The premise of the utilization of plant resources is protection, and the premise of protection is accurate classification." Hong Deyuan said, "For example, artemisinin is a gift from traditional Chinese medicine to the world, but if you don't protect artemisia annua, why talk about artemisinin?" ”
In addition to rich species resources and strong scientific research capabilities, the National Botanical Garden also has a profound cultural heritage. In the garden stands a royal stele inscribed with Kangxi's own poems, and there are also many national ceremonial plants, such as the Bodhi tree that Indian Prime Minister Nehru gave to Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, and the cherry blossoms presented by Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. The last emperor Puyi also worked here, learning techniques such as soil loosening, pruning, and grafting.
(In addition to the signature, the photos in this edition are all file pictures of this newspaper reporter Yan Bing Pan Xutao)
People's Daily Overseas Edition ( 2022-04-28 Edition 05)