------Program code: NS-080811-01693 (what's this?)
Source: CCTV.com
08-11-2008 09:16
 |
It’s a wonderful journey of discovery. For three years, as dawn changed to dusk, and summer to winter, the Forest China research team conducted their study of the virgin forests across the country.
Beyond the boundaries of the society we’re so familiar with is the gradually forgotten natural world. The virgin forests are a last place to experience the true rigour of Mother Nature, and to listen to her original songs. These are songs of loneliness and resplendence, brightness and hardship; sometimes they are the first and last breaths of life.
 |
This little spruce is 16 centimeters high. The three branches indicate that it is three years old. Beside it, where it stands below Najiabawa Peak, is an ancient spruce. A Tibetan spruce, when fully grown, can be 70 metres high and 2 metres in diameter. This forest in southeastern Tibet is the highest in the world.
40 million years ago, due to the collision of the Indian Ocean plate and the Eurasian plate, the Tibetan plateau was formed.
The warm and humid air mass from the Indian Ocean is obstructed by peaks as it heads north. This brings plentiful rainfall to southeastern Tibet, and the forest there enjoys more precipitation than any other in China.
Najiabawa is the highest peak in southeastern Tibet. Within the spruce forest at the mountain’s foot, it is gloomy and sunless. The distance between trees is only a few meters, making it the world’s densest spruce forest.
The ultraviolet light on the plateau is more than ten times stronger than on the plain. The little spruce, if exposed to the sunlight directly, will be killed by the ultraviolet light within a few hours. The thick crowns of its elders have blocked the sunlight and provided it with the protection it needed. However, now that it is three years old, the spruce needs more sunlight to grow. What filters through the old spruces’ crowns is no longer enough. Near the little spruce stands a dandiprat spruce. Though only a little over ten years old, this spruce will never grow any higher. It will die before it is 20 due to the lack of sunlight.
The warm and humid monsoon wind from the Indian Ocean ascends with growing power along the mountain. Deadwood falls from the old spruces, allowing more sunlight to reach the ground. Thus the little spruce gets its opportunity. This is a chance given by Nature, for it to grow.
The little spruce, like the rest of the plateau, welcomes the change of seasons, and willingly joins the cycle of birth and rebirth in the world’s highest forest.
In 200 years’ time, the little spruce could reach nearer to the sky than any other tree in the world.
The life of plants is a constant battle for sunlight. Unlike the hundreds of years lived by some Tibetan spruces, other plants in the forest have to make the most of minutes.
For the fastest-growing plants in the world, life is a dash to the sky. In the valley of Wuyi Mountain, the bamboo shoots can grow to a height of over 20 meters in just 40 days, with the assistance of the Pacific monsoon and the spring sunshine. At their fastest, they can grow a meter a day. It’s a race for speed; the one that grows the tallest in the shortest time will be rewarded with adequate sunlight.
In terms of its height and diameter, bamboo stops growing not long after the shoot breaks through the ground. Instead of getting higher or wider, it will grow stronger. Bamboo is the largest plant in the world. The power the bamboo shoots need to grow originates in their vast root system. The bamboo rhizome connects the whole bamboo forest. Botanists treat a bamboo forest as a single plant. The fully-grown bamboo has the responsibility to nurture the new bamboo. It obtains nutrition from the sunlight, which it transfers to the new bamboo shoots.
Editor:Yang
