Flora of China

The flora of China is diverse. More than 30,000 plant species are native to China, representing nearly one-eighth of the world's total plant species, including thousands found nowhere else on Earth.

Hydrangea macrophylla

A path between some bamboo.

China contains a variety of several many forest types. Both northeast and northwest reaches contain mountains and cold coniferous forests, supporting animal species which include moose and Asiatic black bear, along with some 120 types of birds. Moist conifer forests can have thickets of bamboo as an understorey, replaced by rhododendrons in higher montane stands of juniper and yew. Subtropical forests, which dominate central and southern China, support an astounding 146,000 species of flora. Tropical rainforest and seasonal rainforests, though confined to Yunnan and Hainan Island, contain a quarter of all the plant and animal species found in China.

The flora of China has an online database which gives both a taxon's description and its taxonomy.[1] (see also, List of electronic floras.)

South China experiences heavy rainfall and long wet seasons, making the climate ideal for bamboo and rice growth. North China by contrast experiences limited rainfall and far less species diversification then the south (Kressey , George, 1930). The Chinese landscape has undergone geographical shifts creating some of the most vital habitats the world. The topography of China changed when tectonic plate shifts developed the uplift of the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan plateau. A result of changing topography changed the climate of inner China resulting in the deserts of the Xinjing region and dry climate of north and northwest China (Marks, R. 2017). China’s biodiversity today can be linked back to 13,000 years ago marking the end of a global ice age. A large portion of China was not covered with the same layer of ice as Eurasia and North America, allowing species prior to the ice age to survive well past the freezing period  (Marks, R. 2017). China spans 50 degrees of latitude, and 62 degrees of longitude, with an average temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit and annual rainfall of 80 inches (Marks, R. 2017).