Talk:Chengdu Plain

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Discussion for: Chengdu Plain • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope

Chengdu Plain treats the hemp districts of the Chengdu Plain, in Sichuan, as a historical growing area of fibre hemp. It has no growing region above it.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Why the area is on the map

Hosie (1904): Cannabis sativa, "the true hemp plant", "grown very extensively within the districts of Wen-chiang and P‘i Hsien", with its sowing, harvest, retting, uses and yield.
Wilson (1913): "Wén-chiang Hsien is famous for its hemp"; the true hemp, Hou-ma, "abundantly cultivated around Wénchiang Hsien and P’i Hsien".
Both writers name the plant as Cannabis sativa and set it apart from Abutilon and ramie, which were also called hemp in the trade.

Growing status

The status is Historical: the two sources date from 1904 and 1913. Neither says that growing ended, and the page makes no such claim.

First grown, 1904: Hosie prints no year for his observations. The report was sent from Peking with a covering letter of 3 March 1904 and published in October 1904; the year is the report's.
Last grown, 1913: Wilson prints no year for these passages; the year is the publication year of his book.
The encyclopedia entry naming the Jinguahua hemp of Pixian carries no date, and does not change the status.

How the border is drawn

The border follows Wenjiang District (relation 3581602) and Pidu District (3581605) of Chengdu, Sichuan, China, as mapped in OpenStreetMap (read 22 October 2026).
The elevation and land-cover rules used for other hubs (ground above 4,000 m, and land that ESA WorldCover 2021 maps as bare, snow and ice or open water, left out at the edge) take out less than 0.5% of the districts, so the border is the districts' own line.
Check points inside the border: Wenjiang, Pidu (Pixian). Outside it: central Chengdu, Dujiangyan.

The name

The page takes the name of the plain, which both writers use: Hosie's "Ch'eng-tu Plain", Wilson's "Chengtu Plain". Wen-chiang Hsien and P'i Hsien are today the Wenjiang and Pidu districts of Chengdu (Pidu was Pixian, P'i Hsien, until it became a district).

Accessions inside the border

No herbarium sheet or seed lot on the wiki was collected inside the border. Fang 12269 (1938), gathered on grassy slopes at Chengdu (outside the South Gate on one sheet) in April 1938, comes from the city and lies outside the two districts; it is not filed under the area.

Where the sources disagree

Trade. Hosie did not think much of this hemp left Sichuan, and held that most "hemp" going down the Yangtze was Abutilon. Wilson wrote that the Wenjiang hemp was exported largely down river and was the hemp principally exported from Sichuan. The article gives both.
Season. Wilson calls the Wenjiang hemp a winter crop in his first volume and a spring crop, sown in February and cut at the end of May, in his second. Hosie also has it sown in February and cut in June. The article gives both of Wilson's statements.
Height. Hosie's stems are 6 to 8 feet high in May, Wilson's 8 feet.

Sources

Hosie (1904), Report by Consul-General Hosie on the Province of Ssu-ch'uan (China No. 5, 1904; Cd. 2247), pp. 34–37: the fibre and oil sections.
Wilson (1913), A Naturalist in Western China, vol. 1, p. 108 (the plain's crops) and vol. 2, pp. 81–82 (fibres).
An undated entry on hemp germplasm in an agricultural encyclopedia (智汇三农, published by China Agriculture Press), for the Jinguahua hemp of Pixian.