Maolan National Nature Reserve lies in Libo County. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment identifies karst forest and rare plants and animals among its protected subjects. UNESCO’s Libo description supplies the geological setting: limestone peaks, depressions, sinking streams and caves. Maolan’s particular story is how plants occupy the broken ground between exposed rock and the pockets where soil and water remain.
From the journal
How Maolan’s Forest Takes Root in Karst
In Maolan, pockets of soil in fissured limestone support a forest whose growth is closely tied to small differences in slope and rock form.
In the same city · Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture ↗
A forest reserve in Libo
Thin ground in limestone fissures
A 2025 study of Maolan describes soil as shallow and discontinuous, concentrated in rock cracks; in the study setting, average depth was about 20 centimetres. Soil and organic material gather where a fissure or hollow can hold them. Roots enter these pockets, while nearby surfaces may be bare stone. The measurement helps picture this patchwork ground, rather than a continuous deep layer beneath the whole forest.
Growth changes over short distances
The study compares plant components across microtopography and microhabitats and reports that local terrain affects nutrient accumulation. A ledge, crack or shallow depression changes the soil volume and growing conditions available to roots. Maolan’s vegetation includes evergreen and deciduous broad-leaved mixed forest adapted to karst terrain. Rock form, small soil pockets and plant growth are therefore linked at a close scale on the same slope.