The Chinese Tallow Ancient Tree Cultural Park in Xiaqiao village, Taishun county, Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo/66wz.com]
The Zhejiang Forestry Bureau recently announced the second batch of ancient tree cultural parks in the province. Wenzhou has the most parks on the list, with eight in total.
The listed ancient tree parks are mainly located in Yueqing, Taishun and Rui'an. Each possesses a rich and diverse variety of tree species, including Cryptomeria fortunei, camphor, yew plum pine, sweetgum, ginkgo and Chinese tallow, totaling 11 tree species and 37 ancient trees.
Among them, there are 19 first-class ancient trees with an age of more than 500 years, accounting for 51.35 percent of the total.
The oldest ancient tree in this batch of ancient tree parks is located in the Chinese Tallow Ancient Tree Cultural Park in Xiaqiao village, Taishun county. It is a camphor tree with an age of about 1,200 years, which was planted during the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
As one of the countries with the richest plant diversity in the world, according to the results of the second national ancient tree and famous tree resource census, China has 5.08 million ancient trees and famous trees, of which Wenzhou is home to 16,566.
Wenzhou has been working hard to protect its ancient trees, creating 18 provincial-level parks to date. Notably, one ancient cypress tree in Yongjia county and one ancient tree group of loropetalum chinense in Taishun county were selected as the most beautiful ancient trees and ancient tree groups in the country.
