Xiamen Botanical Garden(Wanshi Botanical Garden)

Xiamen Botanical Garden is located in Wanshi Mountain and built around the Wanshi Rock Reservoir (now Wanshi Lake). The lake and mountain scenery within the garden complement the lush vegetation, forming the famous Xiamen attraction "Wanshi Hancui." The botanical garden features multiple specialized exhibition areas organized by plant category, among which the rainforest world and the succulent plant area are particularly outstanding. The rainforest world, while preserving the original natural vegetation, has introduced a large number of tropical rainforest plants, displaying rainforest characteristics such as strangler figs, cauliflory, and buttress roots. In addition, a misting system fills the forest with water vapor, making visitors feel as if they are walking through a fairyland. The succulent plant area includes three indoor exhibition halls—the cactus exhibition hall, the succulent plant exhibition hall, and the forest-dwelling succulent plant exhibition hall—as well as an outdoor exhibition area simulating a desert environment. It has collected thousands of succulent species, and its variety of cacti ranks among the top of similar domestic exhibition halls, with the tall Wulun columns and golden barrel cactus clusters being quite spectacular. The gymnosperm area gathers rare tree species such as golden larch, cedar, Norfolk Island pine, and the so-called living fossils metasequoia and ginkgo.

In addition to the botanical scenery, the garden is also dotted with numerous cultural relics. "Taiping Stone Laugh," naturally formed by four huge boulders into the shape of an "open-mouthed laugh," is one of the twenty famous attractions of Xiamen; the walls of the Changxiao Cave on the hill behind Tianjie Temple are inscribed with poems by Ming dynasty generals who campaigned against Japanese pirates, and the site is a municipal-level cultural relic protection unit; historical remains such as Wanshi Lian Temple, the New Stele Forest, and the ancient Qiaoxi Bridge each have their own charm. Not far from the main entrance at the West Gate is the Norfolk Island pine lawn, from which visitors can conveniently reach the major scenic areas.