Sitting at the foot of Beijing's Fragrant Hills, where spring flowers blossom in bustling fashion, the National Botanical Garden officially began to welcome curious crowds on April 18.

Covering a planned area of 600 hectares, the plant haven builds upon the work of the Institute of Botany under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Botanical Garden, aiming to conserve the country's biodiversity and preserve endangered species, according to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.

The garden will focus on off-site vegetation conservation, collecting over 5 million pieces of typical specimens from five continents and 30,000 living species for conservation, research and demonstration, including plants native to north China plus rare and endangered kinds from different geographic regions.

Off-site conservation involves the transfer of threatened and endemic species, as well as those of high economic value, from their native habitats to a safe space like a botanical garden or a seed bank, to ensure their survival.

In October last year, during a keynote speech via video link at the leaders' summit of the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kunming, Yunnan Province, President Xi Jinping announced China would initiate a national botanical garden system in places including Beijing and Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, to strike a balance between on- and off-site conservation.

The system will see more such gardens sprout in the nation's quest for the off-site preservation of over 85 percent of its wild native florae and all species on its key protection lists, the administration added.

(Text and Photos by Wei Yao)

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

Comments to dingying@cicgamericas.com