Chen Miaozeng, who looks after plants at the Kewei Space Plant Propagation Base in An'guo City, said plants grown from seeds that had traveled in space demonstrated obvious ecological advantages over ordinary plants.

The space plants had larger leaves and stronger stems and were more resistant to insect pests, he said.

Kewei workers in recent years have put over 30 kinds of herb seeds into two unmanned spacecraft that orbited the earth and successfully returned to the earth, including the China-made "Shenzhou III" spacecraft launched on March 25 this year.

The 24 species of herb seeds carried in the "Shenzhou III" experienced such environmental changes as zero gravity and a high vacuum. The seeds were sown and soon began to produce seedlings at the Kewei base.

A Kewei executive revealed that this year the base hoped to harvest and select improved space herb seeds that showed such characteristics as stable heredity, high efficiency, high quality and stronger resistance to disease.

An'guo City is one of China's major centers for growing medicinal herbs which are widely used in traditional Chinese medicine.

(People's Daily August 12, 2002)