CHARACTERISTICS AND CONSERVATION STRATEGIES FORTHE MEDICINAL PLANT RESOURCES IN THE THREEGORGES RESERVOIR AREA

Some 1 129 species of medicinal plants belonging to 603 genera and 174 families were found in the Three Gorges Reservoir area.Of which 19 families such as Compositae,Liliaceae,Papilionaceae made up 49.4% of the total species,26 generaincluding Polygonum,Clematis,etc.occupied 18.5%,and 37.2% of them were endemic to China,reflecting the fichness of Chinese medical materials in this region.The plants using rhizomes as medicinal materials accounted for 42.1% of the total species,warning us that moderate collection is necessary for the purpose of sustainable utilization.The ratio of the species living in forests to the total was 48.9%,suggesting that forests were the resources pools of medicinal plants in the studied area.The indirect impacts of the Three Gorges Project on the medicinal plants were serious though the resources loss due to the submerge was not very high.Conservation of natural forests was the main way to preserve the medicinal plant resources in the Three Gorges Reservoir area.