Xishuangbanna｜Pretending to be a tropical adventurer at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Botanical Garden

When checking in at the Wanglian Hotel in the garden, you can register for the first guided tour the next morning. We booked the intermediate level but got the beginner guide, yet the science popularization was very good and satisfying. The guide fee is 390 yuan for walking in the West Garden + riding in the East Garden, and it takes about 4-5 hours. In the West Garden, we learned about orchids, ferns, epiphytes, palms, banyan trees (strangling phenomenon), the Hundred Flowers Garden, the Hundred Bamboo Garden, and so on. We talked about flowers when we saw flowers, and about plants when we saw plants 🌿—some leaves have unique fragrances, some are edible~ plants that move like the dancing plant, mimosa, carnivorous plants, and more. The East Garden features a more primitive tropical rainforest landscape. At the start, I joked with my friends about taking photos of me in a jungle explorer scientist style. We encountered many small insects and heard their stories. Plants adapt to the environment and make changes. There is slow competition among plants between the third and fourth layers of the tropical rainforest. We experienced different time scales 🕰️. For example, a segment on a palm tree trunk is the mark of each fallen leaf. Since it’s unknown how many leaves fall in a year, it’s impossible to know the palm tree’s age like tree rings. It’s like a poem written to nature’s time 🌿. East Zone tropical jungle adventure 🌴 We ate the core of a banana flower, which tastes like a caramelized, sweeter version of cucumber 🥒. The white flower is the Egyptian white water lily, the red flower on the tree is the flame tree flower 🌸, and the giant roots of the big-leaf fig tree are taller than me. The guided tours in both the East and West Gardens are highly recommended. I learned many stories about plants and insects. The species richness of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Botanical Garden is world-renowned and definitely worth visiting.