Articles
Contribution of plant diversity and cultural diversity of Yunnan to gardening and landscape
Article number
1455_13
Pages
109 – 114
Language
English
Abstract
Yunnan Province of China is known as ‘Plant Kingdom’ in the world, lying between 21°08’-29°15’N and 97°31’-101°11’E, is located in the transition area between SE Asia and the Himalayas.
Yunnan has a land area of 394,00 km2 and altitude ranges from 76 m to 6,740 m a.s.l. that create extremely diversified environment and topography, of which 64% is forest-covered and different vegetation types with extremely high biological diversity.
Yunnan’s flora contains 19,333 species of vascular plants and ferns, which more than 4,000 spp. of plants are recognized as ornamental value.
Yunnan is also known as ‘Living Anthropological Museum’ in the world, 26 ethnic groups of people with total population of 49 million are in the mountainous lands engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry, and forestry for many millennia, developed diversified cultural traditions including gardening and cultural landscapes.
The plant diversity and human culture diversity integrated together throughout history made great contributions to the gardening and landscapes of Yunnan, and formed the foundations of garden and landscape in Yunnan today.
This paper presents Yunnan’s plant and cultural diversity in relation to gardening and landscape in Yunnan, and discusses the contribution of plant-human culture relationship to garden and landscape development in Yunnan with an ethnobotanical perspective that is in three major areas: 1) contribution of plant diversity in garden living plant composition to present beautiful native flower plants and ornamental plant value, such as Camellia, Rhododendron, Magnolia, Cymbidium, etc.; 2) contribution of local people’s cultural preferences in selection and domestication of plants to meet their cultural demand including both material and cultural uses of plants maintained in gardens and landscape localities, such as ornamental plants, religious plants, worship plants and sacred natural sites (SNS) plants, herbal plants, economical plants, etc.; 3) contribution to conservation of biodiversity ex situ and environment with maintaining native plants and natural, semi-natural and man-modified ecosystems in human habitat localities of cultural landscape in order to live in harmony with nature and sustainable development of social economy.
Yunnan has a land area of 394,00 km2 and altitude ranges from 76 m to 6,740 m a.s.l. that create extremely diversified environment and topography, of which 64% is forest-covered and different vegetation types with extremely high biological diversity.
Yunnan’s flora contains 19,333 species of vascular plants and ferns, which more than 4,000 spp. of plants are recognized as ornamental value.
Yunnan is also known as ‘Living Anthropological Museum’ in the world, 26 ethnic groups of people with total population of 49 million are in the mountainous lands engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry, and forestry for many millennia, developed diversified cultural traditions including gardening and cultural landscapes.
The plant diversity and human culture diversity integrated together throughout history made great contributions to the gardening and landscapes of Yunnan, and formed the foundations of garden and landscape in Yunnan today.
This paper presents Yunnan’s plant and cultural diversity in relation to gardening and landscape in Yunnan, and discusses the contribution of plant-human culture relationship to garden and landscape development in Yunnan with an ethnobotanical perspective that is in three major areas: 1) contribution of plant diversity in garden living plant composition to present beautiful native flower plants and ornamental plant value, such as Camellia, Rhododendron, Magnolia, Cymbidium, etc.; 2) contribution of local people’s cultural preferences in selection and domestication of plants to meet their cultural demand including both material and cultural uses of plants maintained in gardens and landscape localities, such as ornamental plants, religious plants, worship plants and sacred natural sites (SNS) plants, herbal plants, economical plants, etc.; 3) contribution to conservation of biodiversity ex situ and environment with maintaining native plants and natural, semi-natural and man-modified ecosystems in human habitat localities of cultural landscape in order to live in harmony with nature and sustainable development of social economy.
Authors
S.J. Pei, K. Thammasiri, Z.W. Yang
Keywords
plant diversity, cultural diversity, gardening, landscape, sustainable development, Yunnan
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