On October 18, 2019, with the cooperation and companion of HainanUniversity, Environment Protection and Evaluation Seminar of Laos (including 20 members from Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forest, Ministry of Energy and Mines, Ministry of Public Works and Transport) visited Guangxi Institute of Botany, CAS, and The Gesneriad Conservation Center of China (GCCC).

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Members of the seminar investigated the establishment of local botanical gardens and learned the experiences of Guilin Botanical Garden (GLBG), especially on ex situconservation of tropical and subtropical plants, and have a symposium on the protection and conservation of local biodiversity with experts from GXIB.

On the symposium, Dr./Prof. Wen Fang represented Guilin Botanical Garden, CAS (GLBG) and The Gesneriad Conservation Center of China (GCCC) based on GXIB, GLBG and key laboratory’s works, made a talking entitled “Current Endangered Situation of Guangxi’s Local Plants and Endangered Plant Conservation in GLBG (To take GCCC as an example)”. The talking mainly focus on introduction of GCCC, especially the most complete collected Petrocodon species, and their morphological diversity, germplasm resources collection, protection, conservation, reintroduction and relative researches.

After the symposium, Dr./Prof. Wen Fang and Research Associate Li Shu companied with members of seminar and staffs from Hainan University, visited parts of the GCCC. They showed strong interest on the Gesneriads, indicated that the diversity of Gesneriads in Laos is still unclear and need more investigation.

 Looking forward to cooperate with Laos on research for Gesneriaceae in the future.