Everywhere you go in Jiuzhaigou you will be blown away by the verdant green forests all around, but tucked up at the end of the Rize Valley is a section known as the Primeval Forest (Yuánshǐ Sēnlín, 原始森林) or "Virgin Forest". Covering 540 hectares, this is a wonderland of wild and untamed flora and fauna that has been left virtually untouched and remains home to some of China's rarest species. This is where, if you're very lucky, you might catch a fleeting glimpse of a panda in the wild, along with a dozen or so other species under State protection, and more than 2,500 rare types of plants. In the (quite likely) case that you don't spot any of the famous bamboo-munching bears, there's still plenty to see as you ramble through the soft mosses and foliage of hundreds of different kinds of trees, to the sound of birdsong and the wind in the leaves. With so much nature around, your lungs, if not your legs, will thank you for the hike—the Jiuzhaigou Primeval Forest is alive with negative oxygen ions, turning it into possibly the world's prettiest oxygen bar.
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