Plants
( 2005-10-27 )

Tibet's complex topography and widely varying climates result in an abundance of natural resources. Its eastern and southern parts are largely covered with primeval forests, home to rare plants.

Tibet is like a giant plant kingdom, with more than 5,000 species of higher plants. Gyirong and Yadong counties and Chentang Town in western Tibet, and Medog and Zayu counties and the Lhoyu region in southeast Tibet are like museums of rare plant life. Even northern Tibet with its extreme natural conditions contains more than 100 kinds of plants.

Tibet is also one of China's largest forest areas, preserving intact primeval forests. Almost all the principal plant species, from the tropical zone to the frigid zones of the northern hemisphere, are found here. Forestry reserves exceed 2.08 billion cubic meters, with a coverage rate of 9.84 percent. Common species include Himalayan pine, alpine larch, Yunnan Pine, David's Pine, Himalayan spruce, Himalayan fir, hard-stemmed long bract fir, hemlock, Monterey Larix potaniniis, Tibetan larch, Tibetan cypress, and Chinese juniper.

Spruce, fir, and hemlock are distributed most widely, accounting for 48 percent of Tibet's forests by area and 61 percent by stock. They are found mainly in the humid sub-alpine zones of the Himalayas, Nyainqentanglha, and Hengduan ranges. There are about 926,000 hectares of pine forest in Tibet. Two species, the Tibetan longleaf pine and the Tibetan lacebark pine, are included in the State's tree protection list.

There are more than 1,000 kinds of wild plants used for medicine, including 400 commonly used ones. Particularly well-known medicinal plants include Chinese caterpillar fungus, Fritillaria Thunbergii, Rhizoma Picrorhizae, rhubarb, Rhizoma Gastrodiae, pseudo-ginseng, Codonopsis Pilosula, Radix Gentiane Macrophyllae, Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae, glossy ganoderma, and Caulis Spatholobi.

In addition, there are over 200 known species of fungi, including the famous edible Pine mushroom, hedgehog hydnum, zhangzi fungus, mushrooms, black fungi, tremellas, and yellow fungi. There are also fungi with medical use such as tuckahoes, songganlan (Cryptoporus Volvatus (Peck) Schear), and stone-like omphalias.