China's 160 botanic gardens nationwide have managed to reproduce 18,000 of China's valuable native plant species -- 60 percent of China's wild plants.

 

A Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) botanic institute provided the figure at a national meeting on biodiversity held in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province.

 

In response to worries that the valuable plants might die out in nature, either because of natural selection or as a result of human activities, successful efforts have been made to seed them in arboretums, said Huang Hongwen, director of the CAS Wuhan Botanic Research Institute.

 

Huang said the botanic preservation relocation method will be extended to cover 80 percent of China's valuable plants, or 24,000 species, over the next five years.

 

CAS-affiliated botanic gardens will select the plants to be preserved. Botanists will be sent into the wilderness to hunt for plant species and bring them back for cultivation.

 

Plant relocation is playing a pivotal role in the botanic preservation in China, since many species are threatened in their natural habitats by the effects of global warming and fast urban development, said Huang.

 

Some 15 to 20 percent of the 30,000 valuable plants discovered in China are listed as endangered species.

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 19, 2006)