Located In the Southwest of Hainan Island, the continuous and magnificent tropical rainforest of the Jianfeng Ridge Forest Reserve covers more than 400 square kilometers. When you enter the tropical rainforest, you see unique tropical rainforest scenery everywhere. More particularly, the forest has bred 449 kinds of colorful butterflies, far more even than Taiwan-the "Butterfly Kingdom."

In contrast to forests in the north, which mostly consist of one kind of tree, the Jianfeng Ridge Tropical Rainforest has over 250 species per hectare, a higher degree of biodiversity than tropical rainforest groups in India and Myanmar, and the same as those of Southeast Asia and South America.

Another important feature of the forest is aerial gardens, the formation of which is also related to biodiversity, in the tropical rainforest, different plants try hard to make best use of natural resources such as sunshine and water, giving rise to various combinations: tall arbor trees, and below these, shrubs and herbaceous plants, along with diverse vines, epiphytes and parasitic plants. Vines usually climb up to the canopy in different ways£¬while parasitic plants and epiphytes usually grow within tree branches, thus forming aerial gardens. The bird's nest fern (asplenjlgm nidus)and rock ginger fern (pseudodrynaria coronans)are the most special, usually forming balls on the trunks one or two meters in diameter, and under them grow plants such as vittaria flexuosa-beautiful and majestic.

Here, many high arbors have buttress roots, some of them as much as four or five meters high. Prop roots, as the name implies, support the plant. Famous plants with prop roots in the Jianfeng Ridge Tropical Rainforest include gaogenying, dillenia indica and some banyans.

The phenomenon of "strangler tree" is an ecological wonder unique to tropical rainforests. A classic example is ficus altissima. After eating the seeds of this plant, birds leave their droppings on the branches and twigs of large trees. In time, the seeds in the droppings take root, sprout, and, nurtured by bird droppings and leaf litter on the bark, they gradually grow into seedlings. When these seedlings grow up, the tree will have aerial roots. On the one hand, aerial roots can grow vertically toward the earth, land and take root, absorbing nutrients from soil and growing into prop roots, The most famous example in the Jianfeng Ridge Tropical Rainforest is the lush" tree. However, aerial roots can grow downward. clinging to the trunk of the host tree and. On reaching the earth, grow thicker and thicker, forming a root network that entwines the trunk, finally surrounding the host tree completely, hindering normal growth and ultimately strangling it to death. After the tree dies and decomposes, nutrients from it can supply other trees.

As well as its unique scenery, the Jianfeng Ridge Tropical Rainforest has an outstanding function in protecting the eco-environment. Findings from the state-level Jianfeng Ridge Forest Ecosystem Research Station show that the tropical rainforest is an important carbon dioxide reservoir, as one hectare of tropical rainforest can store over 340 tons of carbon, so protecting tropical rainforests can effectively reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Moreover, the tropical rainforest can effectively regulate water runoff volume and store water brought by rain, typhoons and storms, providing water for agricultural production in the dry seasons and an inexhaustible supply for local residents.

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