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Jiaozi Mountain: A species gene bank in Yunnan

Updated:2022-02-23 17:35:03   Yunnan Tourism and Culture Times

Editor's note: The Mt. Jiaozi natural reserve in Yunnan province is a gene pool for species. Rare plants in the national reserve include Cycas panzhihuaensis, the Himalayan yew and more, some of which are dubbed as living fossil plants. As a paradise for animals, the mountain houses the rare animals of musk deer, muntjac, leopard cat and yellow-throated marten. Of course, there are still some folks who serve as forest rangers, guarding Mt. Jiaozi year after year.

Jiaozi Mountain: A species gene bank in Yunnan

Located at the junction of Dongchuan district and Luquan Yi and Miao autonomous county, central Yunnan’s Kunming city, the Jiaozi Mountain reserve is a huge gene pool for natural species. The medium reserve belongs to the forest ecosystem type. Consisting of the areas of Jiaozi and Pudu, it preserves all the native vegetations in various altitudinal zones in central Yunnan. Rich in ecosystems and biological resources, the reserve is part and parcel of biodiversity in Yunnan.

Joint conservation of living fossil plants

Wang Guohan is a patrolman at the Zhongping station of Mt. Jiaozish national reserve management. His job is to take care of Pudu, Kunming’s only area where Cycas panzhihuaensis was found. First appearing 280 million years ago, it is known as the living fossil of plants. Male plants bloom yearly and female plants flower once every two years. Cycas panzhihuaensis is endemic to China, and it is under first-class state protection. The tree is valuable in studying flora distribution, paleoclimate and paleogeography.

"Look at this tree. It's only 10 centimeters tall after three years. You have to be patient to take care of Cycas,” said Wang Guohan. “When it is dry, you should water at the right time, check the pests and diseases often, and weed it frequently in rainy season." Wang Guohan said that in the past, Cycas trees were here and there on both sides of the Pudu river, and many of them were hundreds of years old. Because they were beautiful, villagers would take them home and plant Cycas in the doorway or yard.

The years from 1984 to 2001 saw loss of countless Cycas panzhihuaensis in the area, and Zhao Guangqin, leader of the Abuluo village in Wumeng township, became the guardian with the support of local forestry management. In the following 10 years, more villagers volunteered to be forest rangers without being paid, taking weekly or monthly turns to care for the mountains. Later, villagers Zhao Zhifu and Li Huzhang took over the protection duty from Zhao.

"Right there, 338 wild Cycas trees have been guarded by Abuluo villagers for generations," said Fu Kun, deputy director of the science department of Jiaozi management bureau. Standing in the Zhongping nursery base, Fu showed visitors the location, pointing to the hillside on the other side of the Pudu River. By encouraging contribution by locals and establishing a Cycas nursery base, the bureau has cultivated 2,265 seedlings, built up a two-hectare exhibition area and planted 1,256 Cycas trees. In addition to Cycas panzhihuaensis, the Himalayan yew, a first-class protected wild plant in China, has also been conserved in the Mt. Jiaozi nature reserve. Endemic to China, the yew mainly grows in areas between 2,700 and 2,800 meters above sea level in the mountain.

Waving goodbye to the Pudu valley, the visitors reached the Zhongcaozi village in Zhuanlong Town. "The Himalayan yew grows in that mountain, and it takes more than an hour to walk to the site," said Jiang Defu, pointing to a misty mountain in the distance. Jiang is a patrolman at the Zhuanlong station of Jiaozi protection bureau.

Jiang Defu grew up in the village and was familiar with in the mountains. "I didn't know what it was before, and the villagers just called it water oak." Jiang Defu said that via joint protection effort, the number of Himalayan yew in the mountain has increased from 3 to 13 after the reserve setup. This year, the management also planted more than 19,000 Cephalotaxus at the foot of the mountain. Now Jiang is pleased to have daily visits to seedlings in the mountain.

Rich biodiversity at Jiaozi reserve

Walking into the Mt. Jiaozi nature reserve, visitors are greeted by a special tree. They look taller than azaleas and more beautiful than cypresses, standing at the edge of cliffs and waterfalls like mighty warriors. The trees feature the 4-mm sharp points, as well as oval cylindrical cones that are 7 to 9 cent meters in length. They are widely distributed "stars" in the Jiaozi Mountain -- Abies georgei var. smithii that cover nearly 40,000 mu, or 2,600 hectares. In China, the shade-tolerant tree species is mainly found in the northwestern Yunnan areas with an altitude of over 3,300 meters. In the Jiaozi nature reserve in central Yunnan, however, the tree mostly appears at an elevation of 2,700 meters, featuring the lowest latitude, the easternmost longitude and the lowest altitude among Abies forests in China. The tree’s distribution is thus something really special in Yunnan.

"The Abies trees are just one of special members in Mt. Jiaozi reserve," said Zhang Yinghua, director of Jiaozi management bureau. Geographical conditions of the nature reserve are unique, the elevation difference is sharp, and the habitat types are diverse. In addition, the provincial protection areas of Pudu and Jiaozi, established since 1984 and 1994 respectively, have made the reserve a "shelter" for rare and endangered wild species. Now the mountain has a high degree of biodiversity.

7 vegetation types, 11 vegetation subtypes, 17 formation groups and 28 plant formations grow in the reserve, together with the largest alpine cypresses and the alpine pine forest at the lowest altitude in China. Mt. Jiaozi boasts the most complete vegetation ecosystem in central Yunnan. At present, the nature reserve houses 1,611 vascular plants belonging to 507 genera and 154 families, 2 species of wild plants under first-class protection in China, and 7 wild plants under second-class state protection, which include Psammosilene tunicoides and Magnolia wilsonii. Among the said plants, 16 are endemic to the Jiaozi Mountain, such as Meconopsis wumungensis.

As a huge treasure house of biodiversity, Mt. Jiaozi is also a paradise for animals. "Look, a golden pheasant is out there!" At the reminder, an adult male bird appeared in the monitoring video. It was looking for food while observing its surroundings. The dark red feathers and wings were very gorgeous, and its black crest and cobalt-blue fleshy horns on both sides looked charming.

The video fully showed the place where the golden pheasant appeared. It is located at a crossing of the Sifang scenic spot in the reserve. The roadside forest is dense and the trunks are covered with bryophytes. In different hours, we saw at the same place either golden pheasants chasing and fighting, small muntjacs foraging, musk deer strolling leisurely, or yellow-throated martens passing by in a hurry... In the past year, the reserve management recorded the Yunnan rabbit, blood pheasant, Lady Amherst's pheasant, Temminck's tragopan and others in around 100,000 videos.

Reporting by Cha Zhifu; Trans-editing by Wang Shixue

Keywords:   Jiaozi Mountain species Yunnan