Organized by the Shenzhou Magnolia Garden on January 6, the Second China Academic Symposium on Magnoilaceae was held in Xuwen County, southwest Guangdong under the auspices of South China Botanical Garden (SCBG) of CAS and Guangdong Provincial Botanical Association (GPBA).

Over 80 delegates from SCBG, Kunming Institute of Botany, Zhongshan University, Xi’an Botanical Garden, Shenzhen Fairylake Botanical Garden, and other over 10 institutions participated in the symposium. Prof. CHEN Zhongyi, deputy director-general of Magnolia Branch, GPBA presided the symposium. Prof. REN Hai, deputy director of SCBG and deputy director-general of GPBA, and Prof. LIANG Chenye, director-general of GPBA gave respective speeches in the ceremony. Subsequently, more than 10 noted experts and young scholars were invited to present their updated research progress and achievements in the field of Magnoliaceae. According to the agenda of the symposium, a new council of Magnolia Branch was voted out by the participates. As a result, Prof. XIA Nianhe of SCBG was selected as the director-general, and Prof. ZENG Qingwen and XU Fengxia of SCBG and other 3 experts were selected as deputy director-generals.

During the symposium, participates also visited the implantation center of Shenzhou Magnolia Garden located in Xuwen County. Founded in October 2004, the center signed an agreement with SCBG in July 2007 for joint construction to the center. Since then it has become an industrialization base of SCBG for rare and endangered species of magnolia. Covering an area of 110 ha, the center now breeds 113 magnolia species, up to over 1 million plantlets. Among them, 36 species belong to rare and endangered ones conserved by Chinese government and 40 species protected by International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).