// Hengduan Mountain Area Alpine Wild Flower Survey
Public Science Program
The Hengduan Mountain Area has the most complete vertical natural zone and the best-preserved native ecosystem in China. It is a magnificent plant palace with extremely rich flora. The rich flowers in this area: Davidia , Green velvet , Rhododendron , lily , primula and so on. Their peerless appearance has attracted the attention of the Western horticultural community. The native flowers and plants in the Hengduan Mountains attract many plant researchers.
During this field trip, under the leadership of botanists, we will carry out a background survey of key protected wild plant resources to explore the colorful plant kingdom in the Hengduan Mountains.
Photography/Wang Jianjun
Experts accompanying the team introduced
Xu Bo
Associate researcher at the Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and deputy curator of the Herbarium. Field plant resource surveys have been carried out many times in the Tibetan Plateau and Southwest China.
Investigation topics
1 | Survey and image recording of wild plant resources in Hengduan Mountains; |
2 | Survey of rare plants to understand the background, habitat conditions and dynamic changes of key protected wild plant resources; |
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Introduction to the investigation area
The Hengduan Mountains are the area with the richest species of mammals, birds and plants in my country, and are also an important biodiversity hotspot in the world. The high mountains and deep valleys arranged in alternating directions from north to south provide suitable habitats for different groups of organisms in the Hengduan Mountains. It has extremely high ecosystem diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity.
Photography/Lu Linglong
The alpine wild flower resources in the Hengduan Mountains are extremely rich, with thousands of varieties. The main ornamental flowers include azaleas, primroses, gentians, green velvet, lilies, magnolias, wild orchids, etc. From March to October every year, various alpine flowers bloom from river valleys at an altitude of 1,000 meters to mountains at 5,000 meters. The flowers are colorful and decorate the place into a colorful world. The alpine area is like a large natural garden.
Purple Flower Snow Mountain Heralds of Spring Photography/Niu Yang
More than a hundred years ago, British botanist Henry Wilson visited China many times and led a team through many little-known secrets in China's Hengduan Mountains. He has gone deep into Gongga Mountain, Balang Mountain, Minjiang River Valley, Huanglong and other places many times to inspect wild plant resources and collect specimens and seeds. Hundreds of wild flowers such as primrose , Minjiang lily, and goldenrod were introduced to Western countries, causing a "Himalayan garden" phenomenon to appear in Western gardens and botanical gardens. A large number of pictures were taken to record the natural landforms and Customs and customs, published "China - the Mother of Gardening" which influenced the history of world gardening.
Henry Wilson (1876-1930): British, a famous naturalist, botanist, explorer, and writer in the early 20th century. He was the director of the Botanical Institute of Harvard University in the United States. A well-known legend among the middle and upper classes in the West, he is known as "one of the most successful plant dabblers".
The plants that Wilson brought to the West and successfully cultivated later became the most important components of Western garden plants. Many native plants in China have become the ancestors of thousands of flower varieties in Western gardens. Western horticulturalists have also come to the conclusion that China is the "Central Garden".
Wilson (middle) was born in a poor railway worker family in England. At the age of 13, he dropped out of school and became an apprentice gardener in a nursery. From then on, he became inseparable from plants.
In his book, Wilson gave China a very high evaluation: "Anywhere in the temperate zone of the entire northern hemisphere, there is no garden that does not cultivate several kinds of plants from China." Wilson personally realized that the world's garden art has been deeply indebted to it. It is a native flower in China, so China is praised as the "Mother of Gardens".
Wilson hired guides and plant collection teams
More than a hundred years ago, the Wilson Trail was a plant collection road.
A hundred years later, this is a road that will witness a century of changes in western China.
Photography/Wang Jianjun
Inspection Highlights Introduction
01 Pursuing a century of history - re-walking Wilson's path
Wilson came to China many times for 12 years from 1899 to 1911, and entered the Hengduan Mountains three times for inspection. Its footprints cover Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Hubei and other places, especially in Sichuan, where the collection range is the most extensive and lasts the longest.
Photography/Wang Jianjun
Wilson searched for the whole-edged green velvet in the Kangding Mountains. He went to the deep mountains and wild valleys of northern Sichuan and western Sichuan, and arrived at Dajianlu, Songpan and other places, and harvested patches of golden whole-edged plants. Chlorophytum and Chlorophytum .
The flowering period of Chlorophytum sibiricum is from May to August, and it grows on gravel slopes, flowstone beaches and alpine meadows at an altitude of 3500-4600 meters. In 1903, Wilson collected seeds in Yajiageng, Kangding County. After being introduced to Western countries, it was known as the beautiful yellow poppy. Photography/Niu Yang
Wilson described in the book "China - the Mother of Gardens": When he walked to the Balang Mountain pass at an altitude of 4,520 meters, he saw "gorgeous full-edged green velvet, with huge, The spherical, inward-curving yellow flowers bloom on the hillside and stretch for miles. Thousands of incomparable green velvet flowers, 2 to 2.5 feet tall, tower over other herbs, creating a grand scene."
What kind of spectacular scene did Wilson see back then? What have you experienced in China? More than a hundred years later, we followed Chinese botanists and walked into the mountains and wilderness again...
Photography/Lu Linglong
02 Searching for rare alpine wild flowers
Before and after the Quaternary Ice Age, many species on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau followed Following the pattern of "habitat contraction during the glacial period and expansion after the glacial period", some species survived on the plateau table, and then expanded and evolved in all directions after the glaciers receded.
The unique geographical environment breeds unique and rare flowers, and countless treasures that have never been discovered before. With the arrival of plant hunters, they come out of the Hengduan Mountains and into the world.
Figure 1 is Tibetan Cypripedium , Figure 2 is Chlorophora full-margin, Figure 3 is Hericium , Figure 4 is Spiny Chrysanthemum . Photography/Yang Nan
There are 49 species of green velvet in the world, and most of them are distributed in East Asia (only 1 species is produced in Western Europe). There are 738 species of green velvet in my country, which are concentrated in the Himalayas and Hengduan in the southwest. The mountainous area is the well-deserved "home of the Himalayan blue poppy".
Chrysanthemum racemosa Photography/Niu Yang
There are nearly 250 species of gentian in my country (about 400 species in the world), most of which are concentrated in the southwestern mountainous areas. Gentian is named because it tastes extremely bitter, like gall. It has been used as an important Chinese herbal medicine since ancient times to treat cold and heat in the bones.
Seven-leaf Gentian Photography/Niu Yang
Different varieties of Rhododendron can be seen from the low-heat valley at an altitude of 1,800 meters to the high-cold ice and snow zone at an altitude of 4,900 meters. In order to adapt to different environments, her image changed from trees to shrubs, and finally to a creeping bush. The flowering season also changes with different heights.
The word "clusters of flowers" is most appropriate to describe the azaleas in the flower season. The colors of these flower clusters range from white and yellow to peach and blood red, making the entire plateau and mountainous area colorful.
Changing Rhododendron Photography/Niu Yang
03 Assisting in the background investigation of rare flower resources
We will go deep into the forest area and conduct inspections of alpine passes, coniferous broad-leaved mixed forests, and subtropical broad-leaved forest ecosystems to understand the local biodiversity and The current status of protection and breeding of wild rare and endangered plants, combined with the scientific research projects of experts accompanying the team, carried out a background survey of rare plant resources.
Photography/Jiangshan
04 Carry out plant resource survey and image recording
We use field inspections to observe the appearance and growth environment of plants, record and take photos, and record the variety names, botanical classifications, growth habits, etc. of the plants under investigation. We will also use images to record the growing environment and representative alpine flowers along the way.
Photography/Niu Yang
itinerary introduction
Day1｜Chengdu
Chengdu collection
Day2｜Chengdu-Hailuogou
After breakfast, take the bus to Kangding, rising from 200 meters above sea level to more than 2,000 meters above sea level. On the undulating Sichuan-Tibet Highway, you can enjoy the rich and colorful forest types along the way. The vegetation zone shows changes from subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest to temperate deciduous broad-leaved forest to coniferous forest .
Day3｜Hailuogou-Mugecuo
Inspect the well-preserved Quaternary ancient glacier relics, hot spring groups, complete vertical natural vegetation spectrum, and rich biodiversity. Wilson collected seeds and specimens of more than 100 new species of azaleas in and around Kangding. These species of azaleas have become the most important flower components in Western gardens.
Day4 | Zheduo Mountain
Investigate the dwarf rhododendron (H20 cm) and other shrubs distributed on the gravel slopes of the Zheduo Mountain area, as well as the widely distributed juniper, Berberis , Chrysanthemum spp., Gentian , Artemisia genus, Cochrysanthemum genus, Rhodiola rosea, Silver Dew Plum and other typical vegetation in the Hengduan Mountains.
Day5｜Kangding-Danba
Inspect the rivers, grasslands, forests, mountains, temples, Tibetan buildings and rich Tibetan customs along Tagong Temple.
investigates Bamei metamorphic stone forest , which can be roughly divided into sharp edge shape, city wall shape, column shape, trough shape, pyramid shape, blade shape, etc. Different forms of stone forest represent different stages of development of the stone forest.
Day6｜Danba-Xiaojin-Rilong-Wolong-Dujiangyan
Inspection of the vegetation in the dry hot valley at an altitude of about 2,000 meters. The dominant species growing in the dry shrubs in the valley are leaf , white thorn flower, and saddle. Leaf sheep's hoof beetle, Yunnan soil agarwood , Cultrum , Artemisia genus , Zaoer , etc. Along the Balang Mountain, we inspected the abundant alpine flowers, such as Balang Green Artemisia, Dali White Helium, Adunzi Gentian, Longjian Rhodiola, etc.
Day7｜Dujiangyan-Chengdu Airport
Chengdu disbanded
Activity details
Activity time:
July 15-21, 2022 (7 days)
Activity location:
Sichuan
Activity fee:
16,800 yuan/person
(China National Geographic Science Expedition members enjoy 12% off)
Activity organizer:
China National Geographic Scientific Expedition Department
Fee Description
Fees include:
Full board and lodging, insurance, scientific examination links, camping equipment, logistics support and other related expenses
Fees do not include ：
Large round-trip transportation costs
Expenses incurred by unforeseen and personal factors
Registration method
WeChat registration:
Click " WeChat Mini Program " below, fill in and submit personal information, and we will contact you in time after receiving the information. Contact us by phone to guide you through registration.
Consultation hotline:
China National Geographic Scientific Expedition Department
010-64851539; 010-64852136
(working days 9:00-18:00)
Event contact: Chen Rui 18518489813
Customer service WeChat ID: cngexpedition
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