Vertical differentiation of vegetation in Yarlung Zangbo River Grand Canyon

The bottom is wet, mostly tropical plants (cactus, plantain ...), and the middle is plain plants (pine trees and Metasequoia glyptostroboides in the cold zone ...). Generally, there are few plants at the top of the valley, only grass.

There are many poisonous plants and dangerous animals there.

Walking in the Grand Canyon, you can see many orchids that are hard to find in other habitats. From hot and humid valleys to cold mountainsides, from rocks to branches of trees, even in late autumn, the canyon is still lush and full of flowers such as musk orchid, Fritillaria and garlic. According to reports, there are more than 50 genera of orchids in the Grand Canyon, 150 species.

In the dense forest of the canyon, there is a tropical low-mountain semi-evergreen rainforest composed of Ding Feng, Castanopsis kawakamii and Wei Zi. Among them, Tongmai Oak Forest and Jiang Yun Oak Forest are in transition from evergreen broad-leaved forest in subtropical mountainous areas to temperate coniferous forest. They have obvious defoliation season in dry and wet seasons, which is very special. So some scholars in China call it semi-evergreen broad-leaved forest.

According to ecologist Zheng Weilie, in the Grand Canyon, there are coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forests composed of Tsuga yunnanensis, Cyclobalanopsis glauca and Quercus yunnanensis at an altitude of 2,500 to 2,600 meters. From 2600 meters to 3600 meters, there are subalpine coniferous forest belts composed of Tsuga yunnanensis forest, Abies medog forest and Korean pine forest with large fruit. Between 3600 meters and 4000 meters, there are azalea shrubs and miscellaneous shrubs composed of willow and honeysuckle; 4,000-4,500 meters is alpine riparian vegetation; Above 4500 meters is the ice and snow belt. Different species breed in different vegetation zones.