The World’s No. 1 Metasequoia Road

The World’s No. 1 Metasequoia Road

The World’s No. 1 Metasequoia Road —— Pīcāng Highway

Metasequoia is known as a “living fossil” and is one of the world’s rarest relict plant species. With its graceful form, tall and straight trunks, fast growth rate, it is an excellent tree for greening plains in subtropical regions and also a fast-growing timber species.

As early as the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era, metasequoia-like plants appeared on Earth and were widely distributed across the Northern Hemisphere. After the Ice Age, these plants almost completely disappeared. Fossils of metasequoia have been found in Late Cretaceous to Neogene strata in Europe, North America, and East Asia. In the 1940s, Chinese botanists discovered surviving giant metasequoia trees in Moudao Stream (also called Modaoxi), at the border of Hubei and Sichuan provinces, estimated to be around 400 years old. Later, remnant metasequoia forests were found in Shuǐshān Bà and Xiǎohé in Lìchuān County, Hubei, with over 5,000 trees having a diameter at breast height of more than 20 cm, along with numerous trunks and stumps found in valleys and farmland. Subsequently, large trees aged 200–300 years were also discovered in Lěngshuǐ, Shízhù County, Sichuan, and Luòtǎ, Tǎnníhú in Longshan County, Hunan.

When it comes to metasequoias in Pīzhōu, people think of former county magistrate Lǐ Qīngxī. In March 1957, when Lǐ Qīngxī was transferred from Nanjing, the provincial capital, back to his hometown Pīxiàn (now Pīzhōu City) to serve as county magistrate, he bought 100 metasequoia saplings at 50 cents each and brought them back to Pīxiàn. At that time, a pound of pork cost 19 fen and an egg cost 1 fen — so 50 yuan was no small sum. Under the careful care of the magistrate in the government courtyard, 99 of the 100 metasequoia saplings survived. These 99 trees were propagated through cuttings and grafting, and by 1969, the first batch of metasequoia seedlings was cultivated. From then on, metasequoias began to thrive and multiply across Pīzhōu, eventually spreading to nurseries throughout the county. By 1975, when Lǐ Qīngxī returned to work in Pīzhōu again, those 99 metasequoias had already grown tall toward the sky, and metasequoias had become widely planted across the county. The former magistrate, once again going against the grain, decided to replace all the declining hybrid poplar trees along the county’s main traffic artery — the 80-li-long Pīcāng Highway — with metasequoias. Today, the 80-li metasequoia road has extended to over 800 li, and the city’s metasequoia forest network has reached over 200,000 mu, with more than 5 million mature metasequoia trees standing over 20 meters tall. The former “Siberia of Jiangsu” — Pīzhōu — is now covered in lush green metasequoias. Over 1,000 cubic meters of timber have contributed and continue to contribute to transforming this once impoverished area, and moreover, over 45 million metasequoia saplings from Pīzhōu have been “relocated” to green other parts of China.

The Pīcāng Highway resembles a jade-green stream winding through a valley, a spectacular sight. With 100,000 tall and upright metasequoias lined up in formation and stretching for hundreds of li, “driving along the asphalt road with only a strip of blue sky overhead,” one can’t help but feel the poetic essence of “two ranges of mountains pushing forward a wall of green.” The 80-kilometer green corridor of the Pīcāng Highway has been hailed by visiting Japanese guests as “The World’s No. 1 Metasequoia Road.” And this truly unique metasequoia road has even been featured in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily.

The living fossil metasequoia is the pride of the plant kingdom, and even more so, the pride of Pīzhōu.