Manhao Tropical Rainforest

Manhao Tropical Rainforest

Manhao Tropical Rainforest

Manhao Tropical Rainforest is located within the Lüshuihe Power Plant area in Manhao Town, the southernmost part of Gejiu City. To the south, it connects to Hekou, a national first-class port; to the north, it is 90 kilometers from downtown Gejiu; to the northeast, it borders Mengzi County; to the southeast, it adjoins Pingbian County; and to the west, it faces Jinping County across the Honghe River, boasting a unique geographical position where “one forest connects four counties and one city.”

The Honghe Valley features a typical subtropical climate, with extremely complex geological landforms and soil types that create a rich geographical and biological environment, nurturing a tropical rainforest with characteristics unique to the Honghe region. Manhao Tropical Rainforest is situated at 103°22′ east longitude and 23° north latitude, at an altitude of 145.35–478.5 meters. It is an extension of the Dawei Mountain Nature Reserve, covering an area of approximately 4 square kilometers.

The tropical rainforest is mainly concentrated in the middle and upper reaches of the low mountain valley of the Lüshuihe River in Manhao Town. This area consists of a variety of tropical mountain forest vegetation communities, including tropical moist rainforest, seasonal rainforest, montane rainforest, and monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forest. The morphology of Manhao Tropical Rainforest is that of a canyon forest, with various rare plants mostly growing on steep cliffs. The forest vegetation exhibits distinct vertical distribution characteristics, and the valley bottom is home to the perennially flowing Lüshuihe River.

The scenic area is home to a wide variety of rare plant species, with as many as 95 families and 255 species of woody plants alone. There are over 20 types of nationally protected tropical forest vegetation, such as Camellia nitidissima, Parashorea chinensis, Burretiodendron hsienmu, Caryota obtusa, Cycas multipinnata, Amentotaxus yunnanensis, and Alsophila spinulosa. It also provides habitat for 49 families and 134 species of vertebrate animals. Among them, Cycas multipinnata, a species of cycad, is a rare and ancient plant seldom seen in the world and is hailed by the academic community as a “living fossil” from the age of dinosaurs. Its discovery once caused a sensation in the global biological community. Cycads first appeared around 280 million years ago during the Paleozoic era and flourished during the Jurassic period of the Mesozoic era, about 180 million years ago, with their distribution spanning the globe and coexisting with dinosaurs as dominant life forms on Earth. By the Cenozoic era, following the Fourth Glacial Period, the once-dominant dinosaurs became extinct, and along with them, the vast majority of cycads that had ruled the biological world also vanished. The few surviving cycad species have since been referred to as “living fossils” and the “pandas of the plant kingdom.”

Address: Manhao Town, Gejiu City