Trees once believed to be extinct making comeback

CHONGQING - In southwest China's Chongqing municipality, an evergreen coniferous tree that was thought to be extinct in the wild is making a comeback.

Sichuan thuja tree seedlings the size of a hand received a spray of water under a dozen shower nozzles at a plant nursery in Chengkou county. Workers said 40,000 of the seedlings had been raised at the breeding base and will be transplanted to the wild when they get bigger.

The Sichuan thuja, a member of the cypress family, is native to Chengkou. Specimens were first collected by French missionary Paul Guillaume Farges in 1891. A hundred years later, the trees appeared to have died off, as none were spotted in the wild.