International environmental organization Greenpeace and Wild China Film, a China-based visual studio jointly held an event to unveil a photo of the largest and oldest hemlock on today’s planet in Dali, central Yunnan province, last week.

Dubbed Yunnan king hemlock, this 1,100-year-old tree was demonstrated by colored picture on a gigantic 15-meter-long poster at the venue.

The event was attended by officials and experts from the Department of Ecological Environment of Yunnan, Yunnan Society of Forestry and Yunnan University.

Yang Shiqiang, aged 82, is a retired worker of a local forest farm called Caojian. “I remember in 1965, someone from the forestry department came to me and asked if there is a giant tree up in the Zhiben Mountain near my village,” he started telling the story.

“A hunter of our village once told me that he used to see that hemlock on his way back. So I left with a former colleague of mine with knife and gun for the deep forest despite of heavy rain. We found that king hemlock a few hours later, luckily,” Yang continued.  

“The tree was covered all over by green leaves, and its trunk looked robust, with lots of azaleas and bamboos growing at its foot,” recalled he.

“I heard that a huge wild fire around 20 years ago almost killed the hemlock, so I can’t be excited to see it’s still standing there after 55 years!”  

Growing at an altitude as high as 3200 meters, this 30-meter tall king hemlock was firstly discovered by local hunters in the early 1960s. But none photos it have been revealed until very recently.

“Trees are the largest species in forest, and they always carry some key ecological information,” said Xi Zhinong, a famed wildlife photographer, and also the founder of Wild China.

“We wanted to give a full record to this extraordinary old tree, in order to level up the public awareness on forest protection issues.”

Mr. Xi Zhinong delivers a speech during the event.

Mr. Xi and his team which comprised botanists, experienced tree climbers as well as ecological photographers, had made a 10 month preparation before shooting.

The final product is this gagapixel image stitched up by over 60 pictures that reveals nearly every detail of the tree.  

“Yunnan only occupies 4.1% of China’s land area, but it is the home for over 50% of flora and fauna species across the country. And king hemlock once again shows the tremendous biodiversity of Yunnan,” said Zhang Liangshi, the vice chairman of Yunnan Society of Forestry.

According to the statistics of Greenpeace, Yunnan now owns 9.96% of the forest area in China, ranking the second place nationwide.

Reporting by Qin Menglin (Yunnan.cn); trans-editing by Wang Jingzhong