Since 1997 when the “golden oriole” was introduced in Yunnan for floriculture, its ornamental value has been recognized and has enjoyed large-scale cultivation and brought economic benefits. Its products are sold in many other provinces of China. However, because its morphology is very similar to that of the Canadian Solidago, the cultivation of which is boycotted.
For many years, researc...
Climate stresses, which include high and low temperatures, are the major factors that limit the geographic distribution of plants. Maintaining the integrity and fluidity of membranes is of fundamental importance for plants to survive high or low temperature stress. Changes in the degree of unsaturation of membrane glycerolipids, which affect membrane fluidity, are well known and occur when...
There are three species in Trigonobalanus of Fagaceae: T. verticillata is distributed in Hainan, China (China's new record) and several islands in Malaysia and Indonesia; T. doichangensis, in northern Thailand, south and southwest of Yunnan Province (new record in China in 1981); T. excels, in Colombia of South America close to the equator. Thus the distribution of this genus is northern and so...
Yangbi maple Acer yangbiense, a new tree species described in 2003, is known from only four individuals scattered in the secondary woods on the western slopes of the Canshan Mountain range in Dali, in the west of Yunnan Province, China. Kunming Botanical Garden (KBG) under Kunming Institute of Botany, obtained some 3000 hand pollinated seeds from Dr. Chen Yousheng (Institute of Botany in Beijin...
After the publication of the Study of Plant Cyclic Peptide which produced an important summary in Chemical Reviews (2006, 106: 840, impact factor ranks first in Chemistry), which received the first prize of Yunnan Natural Science (2006), researcher TAN Ninghua was awarded funding from the National Outstanding Youth Fund to expand the study direction from finding plant cyclic peptide to research...
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau lies in the heart of Asia and a steady stream of its glacier melt injects into the top ten rivers in Asia. The effects of climate change exceed the global average. Research found that the higher the more obvious the temperature elevation is. A paper by researcher XU Jianchu, published in Conservation Biology, fully revealed the far-reaching implications of climate warm...
Paphiopedilum and Cypripedium are close relatives belonging to the subfamily Cypripedioideae. However, they undergo considerable divergence in the aspects of leaf traits and habitats. The former has thick, evergreen leaves and usually lives in the deep shade of tropic or sub-tropic forests. In south-west China, they mainly grow in the detritus of the cracks and shallow hollows of the eroded roc...
The De'ang people, an old indigenous minority in China, mainly live in the Southwest of Yunan Province. They have accumulated abundant traditional knowledge about utilization of medicinal plants in their long-time live and produce. Supporting financially from the Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the research group of Prof. LONG Chunlin in Kunming Institute of Bot...
Nectar robbers are floral visitors who absorb plant nectar by means of piercing holes or biting flowers. The impacts of robbers on plant reproduction generally include both direct and indirect influences. The direct effects will occur when robbers act as pollinators (i.e. robber-like pollinators) or damage floral reproductive structures, whereas the indirect effects are, to most extents, subjec...
