With the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and U.S. National Science Foundation, a Sino-US biodiversity exploration team, comprising researches from CAS Kuming Institute of Botany and Harvard University, has recently completed its second field trip to the hinterland of the Hengduan Mountain Range in western Sichuan.
The Hengduan Mountains, located east of the Himalayan Range, form a dramatic series of north-south trending valleys and ridges extending from 1,000 to over 7,000 meters in elevation. The area is particularly rich in vascular plants.
The 40-day expedition has yielded more than 2,200 collections of plants, and many other experimental materials for molecular and chromosome research, providing important materials for in-depth studies of origin and evolution of plant biodiversity in the region. The researchers carried out a biodiversity exploration in the southwest part of Sichuan Province and the Changdu region of Tibet in July and August, 2003.
