Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden

Located in Songjiang District, Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden is a comprehensive botanical garden jointly built by the Shanghai Municipal Government, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the State Forestry Administration, integrating scientific research, science popularization, and sightseeing. Chenshan is one of the nine peaks of Songjiang (referred to as "Nine Peaks of Yun Jian" in the "Gazetteer of Shanghai Place Names") and belongs to the Sheshan mountain range, with an altitude of about 70 meters. According to records by Dong Qichang in the Ming Dynasty, Chenshan "is located southeast of all the mountains, next to the Chen position," hence its name. Due to quarrying in the 20th century, the southern slope of the mountain has been cut away. In the design of the botanical garden, this part has been transformed into a Quarry Garden. In 2005, Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden launched an international call for design proposals, with eight design units participating in the bidding. After evaluation, the German Valentien+Valentien landscape architects and urban planners was selected to be responsible for the overall design and planning. In the design of the botanical garden, Professor Christoph Valentien and his design team adapted measures to local conditions and laid out the botanical garden in the shape of the traditional Chinese seal character "园" (garden), which is rich in Chinese characteristics. One of the highlights of the botanical garden, the Quarry Garden, was designed by Professor Zhu Yu Fan of Tsinghua University. The original site of the garden was a quarry site. The designer carried out ecological restoration and appropriately transformed the deep pools, pits, relics, and cliffs, turning it into a beautiful garden. The Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden Research Center is a plant science research institution jointly established by the Shanghai Municipal People's Government and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It has a scientific research system of "one laboratory, two centers, and three platforms." The three major research directions are "horticulture and biotechnology," "secondary metabolism and development and utilization of resource plants," and "conservation of plant diversity." It also houses the "Shanghai Key Laboratory of Functional Genomics of Resource Plants," the "East China Conservation Center for Wild and Endangered Resource Plants," and the "Urban Horticulture Technology Research and Development and Promotion Center." It is an important research center driven by high-level research for sustainable development.