Articles
INTRODUCTION AND UTILIZATION OF SMALL FRUITS IN CHINA, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO RUBUS SPECIES
There are 194 Rubus species distributed widely in the country.
Some of them are of rather large reserve and high economic value.
About 45 species of Ribes are distributed mainly in south-western, north-western and north-eastern China, from Tibet to the Black Dragon River.
It is one of the main distribution areas of Ribes in the world.
Species such as Ribes burejense, R. mandshuricum and R. procumbens are believed valuable for exploration.
The history of cultivation of currant and black currant extends back more than 70 years and the cultivation area is about 1 300 ha.
There are about 91 species of Vaccinium in China.
Most of the species are concentrated in the south-western part but the great resources are located in north-eastern China.
The wild growing areas of Vaccinium uliginosum, V. vitis–idaes, V. macrocarpon and V. oxycoccus are more than 35 000 ha.
The area of wild resource and cultivated plantations of Hippophae rhamnoides are 44 500 ha and 8 000 ha respectively.
In recent years more attention has also been paid to other kinds of small fruits as well, such as Eleagnus, Lonicera, Phyllanthus and Schisandra.
In China there was nearly no investigation on wild Rubus for horticultural purposes and no introduction of improved cultivars until work began at the Nanjing Botanical Garden in 1987. The distribution of sections and species of wild Rubus are shown in Tables 1 and 2 and Figure 1 (Anonymous, 1985; Lu, 1983).
Figure 1 shows clearly that the great majority of Rubus species are native to the area south of 35°N or the southern part of the Yangtze River.
They are especially concentrated in south-western China, e.g.
Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhow provinces.
The number of species in these areas is about 70% of the total number of species in China.
It was also reported by Lu (1983) that there is a total 138 endemic Rubus species in China and 61, 54 and 39 of them have been found in Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhow provinces respectively.
From north-western Yunnan to south-western Sichuan the genus reaches its highest morphological diversity.
So, in Lu’s opinion, the south-western part of China is not only one of the modern distribution and differentiation centres of Rubus, but also one of the centres of origin of the genus (Lu, 1983).
In eastern China there are a total of 70 species and 20 varieties.
Most of them belong to Idaeobatus and Malachobatus and are especially concentrated in some subsections (Tables 3 and 4).
Among the 11 subsections in Idaeobatus, seven have been found in eastern China.
The total species of each of four subsections out of the seven mentioned above are more than 70% of the total of that section in China.
For example, from the total 15 species and