Qianjiang Evening News
Pencil Holder Tree. Courtesy of the interviewee One afternoon during the Jurassic period of the Mesozoic Era, a dinosaur was slowly chewing on the tender fern leaves of a tree next to it, and the juice ran down its teeth...... Spanning hundreds of millions of years, a tree fern that still grows in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, has become a wonderful link between us and that ancient era. It is the pen holder tree. The pen holder tree is a genus of alder in the family Alderaceae, which is the same as the dinosaurs and belongs to the symbol of the "reptilian" era. As the main ration of the Jurassic dinosaurs, the pen holder tree is known as a "living fossil" and has been included in the national second-class key protected plants and the list of rare and endangered plants in China. In the spring of this year, in the in-situ conservation point of the pen holder tree in Dayu Town, Cangnan County, Wenzhou, the new pen holder tree seedlings have straight stems and stretched leaves.
Pencil holder tree in the wild. Photo provided by the interviewee With the support of the Zhejiang Provincial Forestry Bureau's special rescue and protection of rare and endangered animals and plants, after more than 300 years of endangerment cause analysis, in-situ protection, artificial breeding and wild return, the Cangnan County Natural Resources and Planning Bureau and the Zhejiang Subtropical Crops Research Institute have successfully bred the pen holder tree 0 surplus shares, and returned to plant more than 0 stocks in the wild in Ouhaijing Mountain, Longwan Daluo Mountain, Sanyang Wetland, as well as Cangnan Mazhan Station, Dayu and other places, effectively alleviating the endangered state of pen holder tree resources.
Hatsumi Brush Tree
The expert was excited
五六米高的個頭，樹幹上分佈著一個個橢圓形的葉痕，像扇子一樣的葉片……浙江省亞熱帶作物研究所副所長鄭堅研究員至今仍記得多年前在野外初見筆筒樹的那一幕。“非常漂亮！”10年前，這種樹首次在溫州被發現。當時，蒼南大漁鎮的一位村民無意間在山上瞧見了兩株，因其突出的“顏值”，一眼就被看出“不同反響”。消息傳開後，鎮上林技員及當地林業局、省內植物分類專家很快到了現場，確定這正是3.6億年前就已存在的筆筒樹。緊接著，浙江省亞熱帶作物研究所的專家也來了。鄭堅介紹，筆筒樹喜生長在山溝的潮濕坡地和溪邊的陽光充足的地方，常數十株或成百株構成優勢群落，亦有散生在林緣灌叢之中。“溫州是我國筆筒樹自然分佈的最北緣。”
Pencil holder saplings. Photo courtesy of the interviewee On the back of the leaves of the penstick tree, there are many sporangia that look like small yellow dots, and there are many spores growing in them, and it is from these spores that they reproduce. Over the years, the number of pencil trees has gradually decreased due to factors such as reproductive disorders, habitat destruction, and human disturbance. At present, the first mother plant found has died naturally, and next to it, a new small brush holder tree has grown. As a result, it has become the northernmost pen holder tree found in China to date.
Conquer breeding techniques
In the future, we will meet it more times in Zhejiang
Faced with the challenge of limited natural reproduction of mother plants in the wild, with the support of the rescue and protection of rare and endangered animals and plants in Zhejiang Province, Wenzhou Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning, Cangnan County Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning and Zhejiang Institute of Subtropical Crops have carried out a series of work. In addition to the in-situ protection of this "single seedling" in Cangnan County, Zheng Jian's team also collected spores on the leaves of the mother plant, which provided important conditions for the protection and research of rare and endangered wild plants of the pen holder tree in the later stage. "The reproduction cycle of the pen holder tree is very long, and the morphology experienced during the germination process is also relatively complex, which brings great difficulties to the artificial breeding work." Zheng Jian said that compared with the general seedlings that can germinate in 180 to 0 days in the laboratory environment, it takes about 0 days for the pen holder tree to grow from spores into small seedlings in the full-cycle controllable environment of the laboratory; At the same time, when it germinates, it has to go through the morphological transformation of spores, gametophytes, young sporophytes to seedlings, and the requirements for temperature and humidity are also very high.
The seedling of the pen holder tree which the institute cultivated. Photo provided by the interviewee After about two years of research, Zheng Jian's team finally conquered the breeding technology of the pen holder tree and successfully bred the first batch of pen holder tree seedlings in the laboratory. "Today, these pen holder trees have grown to more than 5000 meters tall, and when they are fully mature, they can reach a height of seven or eight meters." Zheng Jian's tone was not without pride. The study of rare and endangered tree species is a long-term project. Zheng Jian told reporters that at present, the team is still continuing to carry out the analysis of the endangered system of the pen holder tree, as well as the research work on the breeding technology of the tree species, in situ protection, and the increase of the wild return population. This is of great significance for biodiversity conservation and the mining of the ecological value of rare and endangered species, and will also provide a valuable reference for the conservation of other endangered species. It is reported that in the future, Cangnan plans to add 0 new breeding seedlings, and prepare to build the first exclusive protection area for pen barrel trees in southern Zhejiang, and explore innovative models of ecological protection and sustainable use. With the continuous progress of related conservation research, we can expect to see more of this beautiful and ancient tree fern in Zhejiang. Passing under the trees, listening to the sound of leaves rubbing, the legends from hundreds of millions of years ago seem to become clear and audible.
