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In the second part of its coverage on the use and conservation of Tibetan medicinal plants, on February 22, NPR’s Morning Edition and National Geographic’s Radio Expedition to China aired a show on the attempts to conserve a threatened Tibetan medicinal plant.
High in the Himalayas, well above 12,000 feet, a cottony-white flower called the Snow Lotus grows on steep, unstable slopes. Tibetans use it to make medicine for conditions ranging from rheumatism to “women’s diseases.” Tourists prize it as a symbol of the region, making it the biggest seller in the markets of the Yunnan province. Graduate student Wayne Law has spent the last four years studying the snow lotus through a National Science Foundation grant. He describes the snow lotus as existing in the most extreme conditions possible for plant life and looking like it has a big fur jacket on. Law has been closely watching the particular species that is the most prized, Saussurea laniceps, (Asteraceae) and reports that in areas where harvesting has been going on, he can barely find any flowering plants. Also, the snow lotus has actually been decreasing in size because people tend to take the very biggest plants. The big plants are easier to see and are worth more money. But when the larger plants are preferentially harvested, only the smaller plants remain to sow seeds. The snow lotus has lost nearly four inches in height in a hundred years, which, according to Law and his advisor, ethnobotanist Jan Salik, is fairly rapid evolutionary change. They hope to find out how much can be harvested without threatening the population. Traditional Tibetan medicine has harvested only small amounts, but the modern pressure of large world markets now threatens the snow lotus. The extinction of this plant would represent a cultural loss as well as a botanical one. Records of snow lotus use can be found in the oldest Tibetan and Chinese medicine books.
The NPR story is available in audio at <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5222650>.
A written transcript of the NPR story can be obtained for $3.95 at < http://www.npr.org/transcripts/>.
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