South China Botanical Garden

Besides the big zoo of Guangzhou in China, there is also a big botanical garden there. Located about 8 kilometers (about 5 miles) to the north of Guangzhou city and covers 4,500 mu (about 741 acres), the South China Botanical Garden was built in 1929, which is the oldest and largest South Asian tropical botanical garden in China. It is reputed as 'Tropical and Sub-tropical Botanic Museum' because it contains the most species in China. Three parts consist of the South China Botanical Garden: the Dinghushan Nature Reserve, the Nursery and Exhibition Zone and the Research and the Residential Zone.

The Research and Residential Zone covers 552 mu (about 91 acres). It includes a herbarium with 1,000,000 plant specimens, a library with 200,000 books, and a network center. Built in 1956, the Dinghushan Nature Reserve is the first nature reserve in China and the only nature reserve of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It cultivates more than 2,400 types of plants. Additionally, the Dinghushan National Field Research Station of Forest Ecosystem is located here.

Apart from being a place where you will find various kinds of plants, the SCBG also facilitates research work in the fields of ecology, plant resources, systematic and evolutionary botany, gardening, landscape, and biotechnology. Throughout the past 50 years, it has also published various monographs and research papers. The researchers here have applied for 60 patents and have already won licenses on 40 of them. This will undoubtedly boost China's future research in the field of botany and ecology.

The sprawling South China Botanical Garden has three different divisions, which include the research and residential zone, the nursery and exhibition division, and the Dinghushan Nature Reserve. The research and residential zone has about 1,000,000 different types of plant specimens. These plants are conserved inside a herbarium. There is also a modern laboratory that helps the SCBG employees to carry on with their research work.

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