![]() ![]() Travel will become more dangerous and threatened with robbery, which often occurs at dangerous turns of the river. While we chatted around a fire at night, the innkeeper came to give us a warning: “If you go any farther you will travel along a narrow valley cut by the Modaoqi River. My fellow travelers were several peddlers. On my trip, I set out from Wanxian and stayed at Changtanjing for the night. It was regarded as a forbidding place and was seldom visited by travelers. Since this region was located on the border between Sichuan and Hubei provinces, an area characterized by difficult and hazardous roads, murder and robbery occurred frequently. During the war of resistance against Japan, the Hubei provincial government moved to Enshi county in its neighborhood thenceforward its intercourse with the outside world had somewhat increased. The region was inhabited by the Tu minority and had been isolated from the outside world for ages. My trip was very difficult, the trails threading through the mountains being less than one foot wide. So I made use of this rare opportunity to take a solitary night walk in this weird and dreadful place-evidence that I was full of vigor and curiosity in my youth.Īt that time there was no highway from Wanxian county to Modaoqi village. Dead souls were supposed to go there to register. On a hill behind the county town was a temple regarded in the Old China as an inferno where the “Lord of Hell” reigned. I remember that on my first trip the boat was moored in Fengdu county for the first night. In 1946 I made two trips from Chungking to Modaoqi, in February and May, respectively, both times singlehandedly. After crossing the river, I had to walk 120 kilometers to my destination. I left Chungking city by steamboat and, after two days, arrived at Wanxian county, on the northern bank of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River. ![]() Since we had no funds and everybody was quite hard up, I could only go to the place on my own, carrying a few pieces of simple baggage and specimen-clips. In addition, we had no information on whether it was deciduous or evergreen, on its flowering season, or on its ecological characteristics and distribution.įurther research being necessary, Professor Cheng naturally advised me to collect some perfect specimens and to make an investigation. Wang collected had no male inflorescences and since the cones had been picked up from the ground, we didn’t know how the cones grew on the branches. pensilis and other members of the Taxodiaceae. After making a preliminary identification, Professor Cheng considered that it might belong to a new taxon of the Gymnospermae, since the opposite arrangement of the leaves and cone scales differed from that of G. Its vernacular name was shui-shan (water fir), and it was somewhat similar to Glyptostrobus pensilis ( G. One day in 1945, Wang Zhang, who worked at the Central Forestry Experimental Institution, sent a cone-bearing specimen collected at Modaoqi to Professor Cheng for identification. I graduated from the Forestry Department of the former National Central University at Zhongjing (Chungking) in 1945 and then worked on the gymnosperms, studying for a master’s degree under the guidance of Professor Cheng Wanjun. Although I am old now, the two trips are still fresh in my memory. Wang had taken, I made two trips there to collect perfect specimens and to conduct further investigations. Wang Zhang had collected at Modaoqi village in Wanxian county, China. The article, originally published in Arnoldia in 1985, is included here for its sharp, very fresh sense of excitement about the discovery no anthology devoted to Metasequoia glyptostroboides would be complete without it.įorty years ago, I happened to see the specimen of Metasequoia glyptostroboides that Mr. Ashton, then director of the Arboretum, happened to meet Professor Hsueh of the Southwestern Forestry College and suggested that he write a short memoir of his early involvement with Metasequoia glyptostroboides. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |