genera followed geographic gradients in climate as expected (temperate ...... Physical Geography of ChinaâPlant Geography (Part II) (Chinese Vegetation.
The relationship between geography and climate in the generic-level patterns of Chinese seed plants ZHU Hua* MA You-Xin YAN Li-Chun HU Hua-Bin (Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China)
Abstract This paper aims to illustrate the distribution patterns of generic-level elements of Chinese seed plants and their correlations to climatic and geographic gradients. A total of 204 regional floras covering all of China were used to make distribution maps for all seed plant genera using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technology. Climatic gradients were based on data sets from 841 meteorological stations throughout China. Definitions for floristic distributional patterns were based upon the work of Prof. Z. Y. Wu. Most of these floristic distributional patterns were strongly correlated with the geographic gradients in climate, except for cosmopolitan, cultivated and invasive genera. Tropical genera form a large fraction of the total genera (ranging from 0.84% to 94.38% in the regional floras) with the highest proportion in southern Yunnan and Hainan Island. Tropical genera occur predominantly in southern China of
