Endangered pine trees sprout bounty of pinecones at Kunming Botanical Garden in SW China’s Yunnan

Pinus wangii, an endangered five-needled pine tree that is endemic to southwest China’s Yunnan Province, recently started sprouting pinecones at a botanical garden of the Kunming Institute of Botany under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the province, signaling the botanical garden’s success in the ex-situ conservation of the plant species, according to the institute.

Photo shows the Pinus wangii, an endangered five-needled pine, in the Kunming Botanical Garden, southwest China’s Yunnan Province. (Photo courtesy of Kunming Institute of Botany under the Chinese Academy of Sciences)

A total of 12 individual specimens of this species have sprout pinecones at the institute’s Kunming Botanical Garden this year.

The botanical garden began to carry out the ex-situ conservation of the species of tree in 1988. One year later, some of the five-needled pines were planted at the botanical garden for the first time. In 2015, 25 saplings of the species were transplanted into the botanical garden, the garden featuring wild trees and plants with extremely small populations.

Photo shows a Pinus wangii full of sprouting pinecones in the Kunming Botanical Garden, southwest China’s Yunnan Province. (Photo courtesy of Kunming Institute of Botany under the Chinese Academy of Sciences)

This tree species can only be found in the limestone areas of some counties in Yunnan, including Malipo, Xichou and Maguan. So far, 358 individual specimens have been found in the wild. In 1999, it was listed as a national second-class protected tree species and one of 120 tree and plant species with extremely small populations in China.

Photo shows a Pinus wangii full of sprouting pinecones in the Kunming Botanical Garden, southwest China’s Yunnan Province. (Photo courtesy of Kunming Institute of Botany under the Chinese Academy of Sciences)