The Putuo hornbeam, a hardy tree that thrives in the damp air by the East China Sea, could be easily overlooked by visitors to the Huiji Temple on an island in Zhejiang province.
The tree has an unremarkable appearance: spotty bark, small stature and serrated leaves with veins as neatly spaced as notebook lines. But as far as conservationists can tell, no other mature specimen of its species is alive in the wild.
The holdout on the island, Mount Putuo, has been there for about two centuries. And according to a study published in the journal Current Biology, its setting may have been its salvation.
The study found that religious sites in eastern China have become refuges for old, ancient and endangered trees. Buddhist and Taoist temples have long sheltered plants that otherwise struggled to find a foothold, including at least eight species that now exist nowhere else on Earth.
“This form of biodiversity conservation, rooted in cultural and traditional practices, has proved to be remarkably resilient,” said Zhiyao Tang, a professor of ecology at Peking University and one of the study’s authors.
The trees survived at religious sites partly because they were planted and cultivated there.
The report noted that Buddhism and Taoism emphasize spiritual association with plants and the temples tended to be left undisturbed, shielding the areas from deforestation. — JACEY FORTIN / NYT
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