Eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
The right bank of the middle reaches of the Yalong River
Preserve a precious natural environment
Acer five leaflets take root and grow
Kangding spruce stands upright
Great purple-breasted parrots soaring in flocks
...
here
Gexigou National Nature Reserve
Qianlichuan-Tibet Line
One of the most beautiful forest landscape area
For most people, Gexigou is a distant and strange place, but it is not isolated from the world, maybe by chance, you have stayed here for a short time. National Highway 318 passes through the central part of the reserve, from Yajiang County at an altitude of 2,800 meters to the 4,702-meter pass of Jianzi Mountain.
▲National Highway 318 "Tianlu Eighteenth Bend"
The huge altitude difference allows people to feel the vertical changes of the vegetation along the way, from coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forests, spruce fir forests, alpine oak forests, alpine shrubs, alpine meadows to alpine flowstone beaches, various types of vegetation complete.
Therefore, it is also rated as "one of the most beautiful forest landscape areas on the Qianli Sichuan-Tibet Line".
In the deep mountains at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters, there is a well-preserved alpine oak forest. The hanging filaments are Usnea epiphytes on the branches, and they are very sensitive to changes in the environment.
▲The mist fills the air and the pine tree hangs down. The alpine oak forest here is like a fairy tale world.
On the top of the mountain at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters, there is a large area of alpine meadow. Due to the perennial alpine climate, the plants here are low and sparse.
▲Alpine meadow landscape
Acer five lobosa: from "extinct" to "rediscovered"
Acer pentaphyllum is a beautiful plant that differentiated during the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It adapts to the harsh growth environment. It has a high seed empty shell rate and a low germination rate. It is very difficult to reproduce itself. The situation is precarious.
▲The 5 split leaflets are the distinguishing features of the five-lobular maple.
▲In autumn, the leaves of the five-leaved maple will turn from green to yellow, and finally become full of red leaves, which is very beautiful.
In 1929, American naturalist Joseph Locke first discovered Acer quinquefolium in Muli County, Sichuan. Two years later, German botanist Diels named it. In 1948, Hu Xianshu and Zheng Wanjun, veterans of the Chinese botanical community, designated it as a new group of the genus Acer—the five-small leaf Acer group. Since then, few people have found traces of the five-leaved maple, and the species was once considered extinct.
In 1982, when the Chengdu Institute of Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted a vegetation survey in western Sichuan, they accidentally collected two specimens of Acer pentaphyllum from the lower reaches of the Jiulong River, a tributary of the Yalong River. Rare plants that have been lost for nearly half a century are beginning to reappear.
In 2006, a researcher from the Chengdu Institute of Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered a population of Acer pentaphyllum in the Gexigou National Nature Reserve, with more than 260 plants, which is the largest population discovered so far.
▲On the gravel slopes in the reserve, Acer five-lobularia grows in patches, and landslides that may occur at any time seriously threaten the survival of the population.
At present, only about 500 Acer pentaphyllum have been discovered in the world, and they only live in the narrow mountain streams of the Yalong River Basin. For effective protection, in 2016, this species was listed as a key protected wild plant in Sichuan Province. In 2018, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species classified the five-lobed Acer as critically endangered (CR), and it was officially released in March 2019.
And Yajiang is also actively carrying out the protection of Acer pentaphyllum. Gexigou National Nature Reserve has built a nursery stock base in the experimental area, introducing a variety of rare and endangered plants such as maple, alpine rhododendron, and Kangding spruce for artificial propagation, and gradually returning the artificially propagated individuals to nature .
▲ Acer pentaphyllum in the nursery stock base of the reserve.
Kangding spruce: the hope of rebirth
Gexigou National Nature Reserve preserves many ancient plants of the Tertiary period and before, and the Kangding spruce (Picea likiangensis var. montigena) survives here. This is a rare and endangered plant unique to China, with a small population, and its discovery and protection process is also full of twists and turns.
As early as the 1950s, the distribution of Kangding spruce was very rare. After the 1970s, it was almost impossible to see traces. In the 1980s, researchers from Yinkaipu found a live Kangding spruce in Yulin Township, but it was cut down. . In 1995, Professor He Jiaren of Ganzi Prefecture Forestry Institute found a Kangding spruce seedling in the nursery of Jichoushan Forest Farm in Jiulong County, but it died after cultivation.
In October 2009, a small population of Kangding spruce was discovered in Yajiang County by the Forestry Department of Ganzi Prefecture. Immediately after that, protection actions were taken. By collecting the seeds of Kangding spruce, they were cultivated in the nursery and transplanted to the wild, and finally hundreds of plants were preserved. Kangding spruce seedlings.
▲In the Gexigou National Nature Reserve, the ancient Kangding spruce (the left plant in the picture) stands beside the 318 National Highway. Such a tall Kangding spruce is very rare.
▲The sun shines on the cones of the Kangding spruce. It can be clearly seen that before the cones mature, the seed scales are exposed and the back is green, and the upper edge is red or purple.
Home of the Great Purple-breasted Parrot
The great purple-breasted parrot (Psittacula derbiana) is endemic to China and only inhabits southwestern Sichuan, western, southern and central Yunnan, and southeastern Tibet. They are gorgeous in plumage, good at imitating human language, and have won the love of human beings, but they have also been captured extinctly because of this, coupled with the fragmentation of habitats, and now, the remaining wild populations are rare, and they are listed as the second national species. Level key protected animals.
▲They have gorgeous feathers and have been caught extinct in the wild.
The vast forest of Gexigou is one of the only remaining homes of the big purple-breasted parrot. Every year around August, hundreds of big purple-breasted parrots can be seen in the reserve, chasing and playing with each other in the coniferous forest, singing loudly .
Leopard's world
Leopards (Panthera pardus), as a large flagship species in the forest ecosystem, have historically spread all over the mountains and forests of my country, but in the past half century, their habitat and population have experienced serious shrinkage, and now only Scattered in the northeast, north, southwest and southern slopes of the middle section of the Himalayas.
The leopard is a large carnivore. The stable reproduction of the population requires not only a large enough habitat, but also sufficient and abundant prey. Gexigou National Nature Reserve has a vast forest, inhabited by various wild animals such as hairy deer, Chinese gazelle, forest musk deer, Perry's long-nosed squirrel, etc., which provides favorable conditions for the survival of leopards.
Today, however, humans are a vital factor in the fortunes and misfortunes of leopards. In Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan, where the Gexigou National Nature Reserve is located, people believe in the doctrine of "not killing animals" because of their religious beliefs, which also makes it possible for leopards to reproduce stably in this area.
▲After years of investigation, it is speculated that there is a stable and prosperous leopard population in the reserve, and the abundance of ungulates is an important guarantee for the health of the leopard population.
▲In the protected area, the mother leopard is moving with her cub in her mouth. The infrared camera recorded this rare scene.
Light and shadow meet, unfinished discoveries
The above rare and endangered species are only our limited understanding of Gexigou. They do not exist alone here, but are closely related to all other things, symbiosis and co-prosperity, and together constitute a promising ecological world.
▲Sichuan Pheasant Quail: You can’t see me, you can’t see me
Sichuan Pheasant Quail (Tetraophasis szechenyii) is a unique bird in China and a first-class national key protected wild animal. They are active in the alpine oak forest and rhododendron forest in the reserve. According to statistics, the average density of Sichuan quail here is about 0.8 per hectare, and the number is about 3,200.
Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) mother and calf stay in the forest in the reserve. The "V" shaped white spots on the chest of the standing cub are very conspicuous. Compared with the cub, the black bear mother is much taller and quite domineering.
The colorful sparrow warbler (Leptopoecile sophiae) in colorful plumage stands on the branches. It mainly feeds on insects in the protected area, and also eats a small amount of plant fruits and seeds in autumn and winter.
In August, the yellow-green lily (Lilium bakerianum var. delavayi) on the edge of the cliff blooms just right.
At this time, Hemipilia flabellata is also quietly blooming in the dark and damp forest crevices, and the gorgeous flowers are like doves of peace flying.
In comparison, the roadside Thalictrum delavayi blooms more freely and sparsely, with slender flower stems covered with purple flowers.
Circling upward along the "Eighteen Bends of Tianlu" on Line 318
From forest to meadow, from rare to colorful
The Geshe ditch is gradually becoming clearer in our eyes
