Recently, Policy and Research Department of China Biodiversity Conservatoin and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) received a report from the public that the wild thuja sutchuenensis on the Taihang Mountain are being felled and sold in large quantities every day. Most of the plant is sold through social media channels.

Citizens hope that these wild thuja sutchuenensis will not be felled again and hope that the CBCGDF can deal with this kind of felling as soon as possible to protect these wild thuja sutchuenensis. CBCGDF attaches great importance to this and will investigate further and take corresponding actions.

Thuja sutchuenensis, the Sichuan thuja, is a species of Thuja, an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae. It is native to China, where it is an endangered local endemic in Chengkou County (Chongqing Municipality, formerly part of Sichuan province), on the southern slope of the Daba Mountains.

Thuja sutchuenensis is an all-natural plant. It is a purely natural plant that cannot be cultivated artificially. It is rare and non-renewable. In particular, the number of thuja sutchuenensis growing on the cliffs is relatively small.

The dead thuja sutchuenensis tree roots and trunks in the rock cracks of the Taihang Mountains in northern China, because they grow in extremely harsh environments, absorb the essence of the world, and experience the strong blow of the cliff wind, making them form a unique elegant, curved, flexible shape. Its wood density is high, oily, and has a mellow cypress fragrance.

Thuja sutchuenensis, as an endangered plant, is also a living fossil in the plant kingdom, and the country should list it as a key protection object.

(Photo credit: CBCGDF)

By / Maggie