Flora and Fauna of Yunnan

Flora

Yunnan tops other parts of China in terms of plants species. There are 30000 species of plants in China, 18000 were found in Yunnan. Therefore, Yunnan is reputed as "Land of Plants".

The cash crops in Yunnan include tobacco, tea, sugar cane, rubber, and coffee, etc. Tea and rubber play the leading role.

Yunnan boasts of more than 2100 species of ornamental plants, among them, 1500 are flowers. Camellia, azalea, primrose, rough gentian, lily, magnolia, orchid, and meconopsis integrifolia are the eight celebrated flowers of Yunnan.

Yunnan is one of China's main herb medicine producers. A large number of medicinal herbs can be found in Yunnan, such as, pseudo ginseng, angelica, gastrodia, etc.

Yunnan has a timber reserve of more than one billion cubic meters, ranking the third in China. Many of the species are precious, such as, dragon spruce, teak, Toona, Black Rosewood, and Chinese yew, etc.

Fauna

Yunnan is also known as "Kingdom of Animals". There are 1638 species of vertebrate animals living in Yunnan; taking up 54.9% of the total in China. Among them, 253 species are beasts; accounting for 55.6 of the total in China, and 783 species are birds; making up 65.7 of the total in the country.

Rare animals like rhinoceros, wild ox, Indochina tiger, wild elephant, gibbon, and Yunnan snub-nosed monkey, are only found in Yunnan. Many ancient animals have survived here, such as antelope, etc, making Yunnan "the gene pool of species".

Nowadays, there are 132 species of animals are under state-level protection, 33 species are under province-level protection. Meanwhile, 34 nature reserves have been set up in Yunnan.