"Secret Garden" on the Roof of the Earth

The "secret garden" on the roof of the earth - Hong De yuan academician interpretation of the Pan-Himalayan plant code Guangming Daily reporter Li Shengming When people walk into the splendid London Museum of Natural History, it is difficult to realize that many of the plants that make it beautiful are mysterious orientals from the eyes of Westerners.
there are two beautiful wild flower yellow peonies, planted in the flower beds on either side of the gate.
this highly ornamental plant decorates an English garden, but its origins in the far east are almost endangered.
Fascinating East is not only the big yellow peony - the Pan-Himalayan region is the highest point on Earth, the region is one of the most important gene pools in the world's biodiversity, conservation international (IUCN) identified three of the world's 34 biodiversity hotspots are here.
, many European botanists have left footprints in the region.
Pan-Himalayan region is a treasure trove of nature, how many natural treasures there are, need careful botanists, bit by bit mining.
Bright Pictures/Visual China Bright Pictures/Visual China Pan-Himalayan Botany is a large-scale English-language plant chronicle compilation project with the participation of many countries led by China.
The project plans to use 12 years of time to conduct a comprehensive, systematic and scientific record of plant species in the Pan-Himalayan region, on the basis of the examination of the existing history of plant resources in the Pan-Himalayan region, to supplement the investigation and collection of key areas and blank areas, and finally summarize, integrate and improve, thus forming one of the world's largest and most distinctive English version of the natural geographical area botany.
, this reporter for this key project, an exclusive interview with the Chinese Academy of Sciences academician Hong Deyuan.
interview, he described the history of Western visits to the Pan-Himalayan region and stressed the importance of inter-State cooperation and coordination to protect the biodiversity of the Pan-Himalayan region in order to move society and society towards ecological protection.
the appeal of the mysterious plant kingdom of the East, the Pan-Himalayan region covers seven countries, including India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan, all of which were former British colonies.
the region's unique natural geography, and the plants here are attractive to botanists around the world.
, of course, because of colonial history, the British have invested a lot of energy in the region.
as early as the early 19th century, the British began collecting plant specimens in the Pan-Himalayan region, most famously Joseph Dalton Hooker, who later became head of the Kew Gardens (Royal Botanic Gardens).
and his aides began their activities in the Pan-Himalayas in 1847 and continued for nearly 20 years.
published the British Indian Botany in 1875.
In order to edit and publish The British Indian Botany, Hook collected a large number of plant specimens in northern India, Nepal and Bhutan, most of which are now kept in Kew Gardens and the Natural History Museum in London.
great, of course, but that was more than 150 years ago.
, the amount of specimens collected at that time was still quite limited compared to the present.
therefore, we also have to carry out a higher level of mapping in the region, on the one hand to increase the coverage of the expedition, on the other hand, but also to fill the original inspection regrets and gaps.
addition to the British, the French and Japanese also have a strong interest in plants in the Pan-Himalayan region.
the end of the 19th century, the French missionary Priest Lai discovered purple peonies (1884) and yellow peonies (1887) in Yunnan and sent their seeds to the Natural History Museum in Paris for planting before being introduced to England.
yellow peony was grown in botanical gardens and private gardens in several European and American countries, but was gradually replaced when the more valuable yellow peony was discovered and introduced.
Hiroshi, a renowned botanist at the University of Tokyo in Japan, has been taking students on regular annual visits to the Eastern Himalayas since the 1960s and has published some plant records.
although Harakuhara himself has passed away, the tradition of Japanese expeditions in the region has continued.
to this day, British botanists are still active in the Pan-Himalayan region, and after the publication of Bhutan's Botany a few years ago, the British are now devoted to the Nepali Botany.
launched the project in 1997, led by the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, UK, but only one has been published so far.
the ecologically fragile Pan-Himalayan region, said the natural environment is vital for a country.
natural disasters are now frequent, in addition to the climate itself, deforestation is one of the important reasons.
nature raised human beings, our food and clothing can not be separated from it.
we all drive today, and tires are made from the rubber trees of nature.
hybrid rice is so famous, the theory of the three-series matching has long been formed, but want to succeed is the same can not be separated from the gift of nature.
so-called three-series matching refers to male infertility, recovery and maintaining system, missing one can not.
Yuan Longping's assistant, Li Bihu, stumbled upon a suitable long-distance perennal wild male infertility rice in a ditch in Hainan, and later relied on it to successfully make hybrid rice.
to protect the original forest is to protect the diversity of life, in the investigation, we found that the Pan-Himalayan ecological environment is fragile, facing a crisis.
many trees are cut down, the plants under the forest will not survive, and the destruction of trees will lead to soil erosion, which in turn will lead to mudslides.
logging is a damage to the entire ecosystem.
resources in the Himalayas are retreating and disappearing at an unprecedented rate.
main reasons are large-scale deforestation, landslides, knife and fire, mudslides, over-harvesting of wildlife, especially the growing population of biological resources and ecosystems have caused great pressure.
background, the protection of ecological environment and the rational use of natural resources are the people's hearts.
Shonde said: "It can be said that we have made it clear that identifying endangered species and identifying available resources is a good thing for all countries in the region and therefore has broad support."
" Pan-Himalayan region is an important channel, but also a natural geographical unit, but also has a great feature.
is the roof of the world, the third pole of the world, and the water tower of Asia.
, the Yangtze, Yellow, Ganges, Indus, Fury, Sands and Mekong rivers all originate here, and these rivers feed a third of the world's population.
the ecological security of the region is at stake for the future of all neighbouring countries.
in order to complete such an ambitious botany project, we need to work together.
, in particular, field trips are time-consuming and labor-consuming, and our international cooperation is reflected in every aspect.
, we have teamed up with researchers from many developed countries.
we have recruited researchers from 14 countries, including the UK, Japan, the US, Switzerland, Russia, Austria and the Czech Republic.
these people are experts specializing in different plant groups, and many countries' plant chronicles invite them to participate.
, we are active in the Pan-Himalayan region and have in-depth cooperation with researchers from local countries, supported by the governments of the countries involved.
local government hopes our botany program will help them develop researchers while improving local research and facilities.
benefits of international cooperation are the integration of resources and coordinated development.
After all, mapping plant resources in such a large area is an ambitious issue that requires years of sustained investment and the sharing of technology, capital and talent, which is what the Belt and Road Has brought to neighboring countries.
from Linnai to Molecular Biology, said he was one of the first visiting scholars sent to the West after China's reform and opening-up, and had studied and worked in Sweden for two years.
and Linnay, a pioneer in botany research, is Swedish.
, published in 1753, laid a significant double name in botany.
since then, people of different nationalities, languages and cultures around the world have finally been able to communicate on plants.
because of historical limitations, Linnay's original idea was to document all the species in the world.
believes that the world's species should be created by God and not changed.
that although he found variations in plants in nature through collection and observation, he attributed the variation to differences in soil and moisture.
this idea was not subverted until Darwin.
1859, Darwin published The Origin of Species, about species evolution, with a path from simple to complex.
this completely overturns God's idea of creating everything.
this new concept has changed the direction of botanists' analysis and research.
For plant research, analyzing and classifying plant morphology has different meanings, and by analyzing algae, moss, naked plants, and bee plant morphology, we look for the evolutionary path and kinship of plants.
after Linnay, it was an important leap in thought.
Joseph Dalton Hooker, a renowned 19th-century British botanist and explorer, founder of geo botany and a close friend of Darwin, has been director of the Royal Botanical Gardens for more than two decades and has won many of the highest awards in British botany.
von Linné, Linnai (May 23, 1707-January 10, 1778), Swedish botanist, zoologist and doctor.
he laid the foundation of the two names of modern biology and was the father of modern bioclassifics.
, the rise of molecular biology took botany to the next level.
molecular biology is the study of organisms at the molecular level.
This is an interdisciplinary study between biology and chemistry, covering genetics, biochemistry and biophysics, which analyzes the relationship between DNA, RNA, and protein biosynthetics to understand how their interactions are regulated.
Said that in botany research, the use of molecular biology means to study protein changes, analysis of serum, detection of DNA molecular sequences and even the complete sequencing of the genome is an important innovation in botany research today.
of the original analysis of the form has more limitations, and the evidence of molecular biology is sufficiently convincing.
Pan-Himalayan Botany re-revises the classification of known species through a new round of field visits, sample collection and specimen identification, and then integrates DNA information using the latest molecular biology techniques, which on the one hand is equivalent to revising the basic data of previous plant species, and on the other hand, it is more comprehensive.
of plants is one of the basic tasks of plant taxonomy, which is of great significance to the development of national resources and related disciplines.
the compilation is not administrative but also to natural geography as a division, so it is more scientific and reference value academically.
Extended Reading The Pan-Himalayan region includes parts of the Himalayas, Transverse, Karakoram and Hindu Kush, across China, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, and is the most environmentally and climate-complex region on Earth, known as the "Third Pole of the Earth", the "Asian Water Tower" and the "Roof of the World".
the region is one of three biodiversity hotspots identified by Conservation International (IUCN), with an estimated 20,000 species of ferns and seed plants, the most abundant of which are in the Eastern Himalayas and Transverse Mountains.
the southern end of the region is adjacent to the tropical northern edge of Southeast Asia, and the north and northwest are transitioning to the high cold zone of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The transverse mountainous area in the
area has the North-South Jinsha River, Lancang River, The Fur River and its tributtor canyons, which facilitate the exchange of north-south plants, and form a more complete vertical belt from the valley to the mountains, and the dual influence of the southwest monsoon and the southeastern monsoon provides excellent natural conditions for the survival, reproduction and differentiation of plant species, together with geological and historical events, which make the region almost all kinds of plant system components in the northern hemisphere.
the region's special geographical location and complex and diverse ecological environment have created a "world-wide concern" of the plant system differentiation center, so the area is an ideal area for biodiversity and evolutionary biology research.
(Yang Bowen) Source: Guangming Daily