Analysis of the assortment of Chinese gardens - UNESCO world heritage sites

The richness and diversity of Chinese flora is analyzed on the example of 9 gardens of the Suzhou City District of Jiangsu Province, located in the delta of the largest Asian Yangtze River. The gardens were created in the XI-XIX centuries and since 1997 have been included in the List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Methods of comparative analysis, historical method and statistical methods of database processing were used to study the assortment of gardens. Traditionally, the species composition of Chinese gardens directly depends on their area. It was found that out of 187 plant species growing in the historical gardens of Suzhou, only 15 species are introduced, while 97 % of the species belong to the Japanese-Chinese floristic region; 8 species are found in each of the studied gardens. All plants of Chinese origin have important economic and ethno-cultural significance.