The Karst landforms are widely distributed in South and Southwest China. The Karst forest communities in those areas have abundance of plant species and high specificity. Of course, this areas, from Southeast Yunnan to West Guangxi, is one of the most important hotspots for China's biodiversity conservation.

Dr. Wen Fang from GXIB found and collected an unknown species of Parabora in Wenshan city, Yunnan in 2009. At that time, the specimens were collected by Dr. Wen Fang only had fruits without flowers. Soon afterwards, this species was introduced and was being cultivated in the nursery of GCCC since 2013. In the same year, two Engineers from the he management and nursing office of Wenshan National Nature Reserves, Mr. He De-Ming and Ms. Feng Yan-Fei, also collected the same unknown species of Paraboea in the field. The collected specimen number is WSLJS646. After carefully consulting relevant literature from China, Vietnam, Thailand, U.K., U.S.A. and comparing with the species and specimens from China, Vietnam, Thailand, by Dr. Hong Xin and Dr. Wen from GCCC, Anhui University and Guangxi Institute of Botany, CAS, it was confirmed as a new taxon of Paraboea, Gesneriaceae. It was named as Paraboea wenshanensis X.Hong & F.Wen.

Tracking and studying this new taxon, the he management and nursing office of Wenshan National Nature Reserves and Kuming Institute of Botany, CAS, collaborated to keep the seeds of Paraboea wenshanensis in The Germplasm Bank of Wild Species in Kunming. To consider the human activities influence and the population number of this species in Wenshan, we need to assess the distributed situation of this new taxon according to the IUCN red list categories and criteria. Thus, we temporarily propose that Paraboea wenshanensis should be considered as ‘Data Deficiency, DD’.

The research was supported by The Germplasm Bank of Wild Species in Kunming Institute of Botany, Anhui University, NSFC ( Natural Science Foundation of China) and “STS”CAS.

This new taxon was entitled as “Paraboea wenshanensis, a new species of Gesneriaceae from Yunnan, China”, published in the famous SCI journal, Phytokeys (95: 83—91).

Fig.1 the habitat of Paraboea wenshanensis

Fig. 2 The engineer, Mr. He De-Ming, in the field

Fig. 3 The researching team of GCCC and the engineer, Mr. He De-Ming