Community of endangered plants found

WUHAN - A large community of an endangered plant species has been discovered in Houhe National Nature Reserve in Hubei province.

The plant, Changiostyrax dolichocarpa, was spotted during a survey conducted by a research team from the Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with reserve staff.

A rare large community of about 16 individual specimens of the species was identified in an area of about 3 hectares, said Jiang Mingxi, head of the team.

"It was the pleasant scent that brought us to them," said Wang Qingye, a researcher. "When walking along a river, a breeze with a special flower scent passed our way. We traced the scent and found some white flowers in tall trees whose leaves we had never seen before."

After close study, researchers recognized the plant as the endangered Changiostyrax dolichocarpa, a perennial tree endemic to China that was listed as a State-protected key wild plant in 1999.

An exhaustive field survey of the natural distribution range of the plant, conducted from 1995 to 2005 by the botanical garden researchers, found only six trees.

Xinhua

(China Daily 04/23/2019 page4)