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2,500-year-old Cypress Tree in Tibet
Reporters from Xinhua News Agency saw with their own eyes a 2,500-year-old cypress tree in Tibet, known as the "roof of the world," recently.
The big tree, located near the Bayi Township in Nyingchi Prefecture, is more than 50 meters tall and with a diameter of some six meters at breast height. The cypress tree is said to be the tallest and oldest cypress tree in China.
The big tree has aroused great interest from tourists and it takes about 21 people to totally embrace the tree.
Local tourism sources said nearly 2,000 travelers visited the tree in the past two days. Some of them came from Japan or southeast Asian countries.
Experts said that this old cypress tree belongs to the Yarlung Zangbo cypress tree family, which is under state second-class protection.
Xinhua correspondents learned that some experts have done research on the tree and based on their studies, found out about climatic changes, distribution of plants and evolution of forest in Tibet.
Around the old cypress tree live nearly 1,000 big and small cypress trees. The local government has made the area a cypress protection zone and often sends experts to check on them to see if they are growing well.
A large area of oak trees and mulberry trees can also be seen in Nyingchi and other places in the Tibet Autonomous Region, some of them being more than 1,000 years old, experts said.
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