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Looking back over XTBG's tumultuous but steadfast development Longing for a greater adventure with a harmonious and unified effort

Updated: 2009-07-10 14:11

Living in grass cottages, sleeping on bamboo beds, and earning a living roughly on fishing and hunting, XTBG predecessors started their field investigations and inaugurated the first nursery and experimental fields with such primitive tools as swords and axes.

The predecessors worked six and a half days each week, six days for constructing the Garden, and a half day for grain. They nicknamed themselves as “Team Robinsons”. The summer heat in rainy seasons and incredibly hot sun in dry seasons were unbearable. Torrential rains and storms often devastated the grass cottages. Floods in Luosuo River sometimes washed away the houses on the riverside. The first batch of predecessors contributed not only youth and sweat but even the precious lives. Deng Jian, Bao Jilong, Li Wenxin and Zhou San died a death for the Garden during that period. We will never forget them.

“Who argue no Tropics in China? Such a wonderful tropical plant camp here!” With achievements made, a phased target was realized in 1963, under Prof. Cai’s guidance of “Small achievements in three years and great strides in ten years.” Relying on themselves, more than 6,000 square meters of houses including laboratories, offices and residential rooms were set up; the nursery, specimen plants collection and experimental fields were inaugurated. Over 1,000 plant species from home and abroad were introduced and cultivated. The Garden made advances in the introduction and domestication of oil plant lard fruit, cultivation and propagation of medicinal plant Rauwolfia (Rauvolfiae verticillatae) which is useful to cure high blood pressure, high-yielding cultivation of banana and cassava. All these helped the Garden gain a good reputation among those a dozen of Chinese botanical gardens in that period.

In 1963, the first Conference on CAS Botanical Gardens was held here. The achievements by the Garden won heartfelt praise from well-known scientists/Garden dirctors like Yu Dejun, Chen Fenghuai, Sheng Chenggui from the community of botanical gardens.

To 1965, the ambitious Prof. Cai Xitao was getting prepared for greater adventures of the Garden. He proposed “to learn from Bogor Botanical Garden and catch up with the Kew” for the first time, showing the ambition of “creating a world first-class botanical garden” on this peninsula.

II. Vicissitudes in Adversities, Revivals in Hardships

While Prof. Cai Xitao was ambitiously heading the staffs to construct the Garden, the 10-year-long Cultural Revolution broke out.

In 1967, Prof. Cai was prosecuted. Even the plants were shattered. The precious plant resources were trampled and logged.

Prior to the Cultural Revolution, 1,500 plant species had been collected in the Garden. However, the plants were out of management from late 1966. Fewer than 1,000 plant species were recorded in the re-census in 1972.

During 1966 and 1970, the Garden was almost crippled. In September 1970, the Garden became a sub-institution of Science & Technology Commission of Yunnan Province, and was named as “Yunnan Provincial Institute of Tropical Botany”.

Looking back over XTBG's tumultuous but steadfast development Longing for a greater adventure with a harmonious and unified effort

In such adversities and hardships, Prof. Cai Xitao remained a persevering pioneer with strong belief. In 1969, he wrote down “Extremely unusual to see snow in tropics in June”, “Real or fake, all snow melts in mud. Which is dirty? Which clean?” in an episode “Sand Washed with Wave”. Upon his reappearance in 1971, Prof. Cai Xitao started the work of saving the remaining 1,000 plant species. The Institute was gradually reviving, with about 2,000 plant species collected at a fast speed.

During 1972 and 1978, Prof. Cai was dedicated to renewing the Garden construction and scientific research, which showed his courage and wisdom everywhere.