The Chinese Rhododendron Garden in the depths of the mountains

In the Longmen Mountains, within the Longchi National Forest Park in Dujiangyan, Chengdu, there is a botanical garden covering more than 620 acres. Every spring, 104 species of rhododendrons bloom one after another, attracting visitors who wander among them, marveling and lingering. This botanical garden is the Huaxi Subalpine Botanical Garden of the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, also known as the Chinese Rhododendron Garden. It is the only botanical garden in China with the core goal of rhododendron conservation and research. It has collected and preserved more than 2,000 species of living plants, including over 420 species of wild rhododendrons. There are more than 1,000 species of rhododendrons in total, with nearly 600 species in China, mostly distributed in the southwest and south regions. As one of the important garden landscaping tree species, it is known as the "flower that blooms from the seaside to the clouds."