Source: Taiwan Straits Network
■ The New Product Office of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration organized experts to substantively review the new varieties of cherry blossoms in Fujian Mountains on the spot.
One of the new products of "Xiamen Beauty"
According to the Xiamen Evening News, many citizens are deeply impressed by the cherry blossom valley near the Nanshan Gate of the Municipal Garden and Botanical Garden, and the beautiful sea of flowers when the mountain cherry blossoms are in full bloom is a must-visit punching point for citizens and tourists. Recently, the 6 new varieties of Cherry Blossoms in Fujian Mountain selected and bred by the Municipal Landscape and Botanical Garden have obtained the national plant new variety rights. This is an honor won by the garden's Fujian Mountain Cherry Blossom Breeding Team after 10 years of hard work.
Cherry blossoms are brightly colored and flourishing, making them an important flowering tree species in early spring. When it comes to cherry blossoms, many people first think of Japanese cherry blossoms, in fact, of the 150 species of cherry blossom plants on the earth, there are more than 50 kinds of plants native to China. Among them, there are about 40 species of wild cherry blossoms, which are the ancestors of all cultivated cherry blossom varieties in the world, and there are as many as 33 species native to China. The Fujian Mountain Cherry Blossom Breeding Team of Xiamen Botanical Garden continued to carry out research on the collection of cherry blossom germplasm resources and the breeding technology of new varieties in Fujian Mountain, and the 6 varieties that obtained the national plant new variety rights this time, "Xiamen Beauty", "Double Flag", "New Year's Day Red", "XiaofeiHan", "Acacia Red" and "Daughter Red", were selected and bred from the first batch of seed breeding seedlings in 2011.
It is understood that the Xiamen Botanical Garden collected a large number of Fujian mountain cherry blossom seeds from the Fuzhou Botanical Garden that year, and sowed and bred more than 1,000 seedlings in 2012. The potted seedlings were cultivated and observed in the nursery and colonized in march 2016 in the cherry blossom valley next to the South Gate of the Botanical Garden. After flowering in 2017, a number of mutant plants with obvious specificity and strong ornamental properties were selected from them, and asexual propagation was carried out through grafting in 2019. In February this year, the New Product Office of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration organized experts to conduct an on-site substantive review of the new varieties selected and bred, and passed the specificity, consistency and stability measurement of the new varieties of cherry blossoms in Fujian Mountain.
According to reports, these 6 new varieties have their own characteristics in terms of ornamentality. In terms of flower type, there are "Xiamen Beauty" with heavy petals, "Double Flag" with flag petals, and "Xiaofeihan" with petals; in terms of flower colors, there are bright rose red "Double Flag", "New Year's Day Red" and "Acacia Red", pink "Xiaofeihan" and "Daughter Red", and purple -- "Xiamen Beauty"; in the flowering period, 6 varieties have opened from late December to early March, greatly extending the overall viewing period of Fujian Mountain Cherry Blossoms.
At present, this batch of Fujian mountain cherry blossom varieties with independent intellectual property rights has been bred in a certain number, and in the construction of the south gate entrance area of the botanical garden to create one of the national 5A-level scenic spot upgrading projects, it will be planted together with many characteristic plants in the Fujian-Taiwan region to jointly create the Fujian-Taiwan Botanical Garden. (Reporter Lin Xiaoyun)