Current and recent research in East Asia
'Stone Forest' near Kunming, southern China
Flora of China
The Arnold Arboretum and Harvard University Herbaria serve as an important center for the Flora of China Project. The Flora of China Project is an international collaboration to produce the first complete, English-language record of the approximately 31,500 species of vascular plants occurring wild in China (all native and naturalized plants, plus economically important exotics, such as crops or plantation plants), amounting to about 12% of the world’s total plant diversity.
European botanists who first conducted botanical expeditions in China more than 200 years ago were fascinated by the diversity, usefulness, and beauty of Chinese plants. Understanding Chinese flora continues to be important; more than 1.3 billion people depend on China’s numerous species of food crops for survival, and several thousand species of plants are ornamental or important sources of medicine, oil, waxes, fibers, timber, aromatics, and other products. It is estimated that more than 5,000 species of plants are used regularly as sources of medicine in China. Because of extensive land use, deforestation, and destruction of natural habitats, more than 3,000 species of plants in China are either endangered or threatened with extinction.
Comprising some 7,500 species of woody plants, the flora of China is the most diverse in the North Temperate Zone. China is the only country in the world that includes unbroken transitional zones connecting tropical, subtropical, temperate, and boreal forests. Some genera of vascular plants (e.g., Metasequoia, Ginkgo, Cercidiphyllum), which are known only as fossils in Europe and North America, have survived in China (Hu, 1980). Therefore, knowledge of the flora of China is essential for interpreting the fossil record and understanding the vegetational history of other continents, for adequate protection of plants and their sustainable use, and for understanding a significant fraction of the world’s plants (Boufford and Spongberg, 1983).
Hengduan Mountains Expeditions
In 1997, under the auspices of the Biotic Surveys and Inventory Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Arnold Arboretum initiated a three-year program that brought together Chinese and American scientists to inventory the plant and fungal diversity of the Hengduan Mountains. These expeditions resulted in the addition of 32,623 specimens—7,970 of which were unique—of vascular plants, bryophytes, and fungi to the collections of the Harvard University Herbaria and of other herbaria worldwide.
Living Collections
Since the 1980 Sino-American Botanical Expedition, the Arnold Arboretum has focused efforts toward germplasm collection in temperate regions. Much of this work has been conducted through the Arboretum’s participation in the North America-China Plant Exploration Consortium (NACPEC) [pdf]. Beginning with a feasibility expedition in 1991, NACPEC has conducted a total of 12 botanical expeditions to China. These explorations represent a concerted effort to systematically investigate varying climatic areas, habitats, and ecosystems across a wide geographic range. Contributions from these trips have resulted in a wealth of knowledge about the characteristics and ecology of Chinese plants, represented by extensive collection notes and herbarium specimens. Furthermore, by bringing germplasm back to North America and integrating it into the consortium institutions’ living collections, participants collectively learn how these individuals respond to diverse growing conditions in cultivation.