1 . The story started from a popular video, in which a tourist pulled a flower out of the ground in Tibet and boiled it with other food.

He might not know what he dug up was not an ordinary one but snow lotus, an extremely rare species. The exact number existing in the wild is unknown, but scientists believe that the species is dying out and people are not allowed to collect them for private or even scientific use since 2000.

The snow lotus generally only grows above the snowline of the Tibetan Himalayas or Heaven Mountain in Central Asia. In order to survive the harsh environment and strong wind, it grows thick hair on the outside, which keeps the plant from the cold. And it often has to grow around six to eight years before its only flowering time in life.

Only very few plants and animals survive in such an environment. Therefore, each snow lotus is key part of fragile (脆弱的) ecosystem around it. When someone digs one out of the ground, he/she not only wastes the plant’s own years of efforts, but also threatens the ecological (生态的) balance of about one square kilometer around it.

For a long time, many people collect the lotus flowers to sell as herbal (药草的) plants to others, even though their herbal effects are not proved. Regardless of the fact, some traders do misleading advertising about them and illegally sell them at high prices. As a result, the species is in danger. The snow lotus is not the only plant that suffers from the illegal sale of certain people because they carry a sense of mystery. It is time the law offered stricter protection of these rare plants for the ecological environment.

1. What did the author intend to tell us about the tourist?

A．He destroyed an endangered plant.	B．He has good outdoor survival skills.
C．He discovered a special kind of flowers.	D．He has made many popular short videos.

2. Why does the snow lotus have thick hair on the outside?

A．To fight for enough living space.	B．To make the flower less obvious.
C．To protect it from extreme conditions.	D．To prevent it from being dug out easily.

3. What does the author mainly suggest in Paragraph 4?

A．It is hard for people to find a snow lotus.

B．It takes many years for a snow lotus to fully grow.

C．Some rare plants usually grow in weak environments.

D．The snow lotus is very important to the local ecosystem.

4. What lesson can we probably learn from the text?

A．We should call on the public to protect rare plants.

B．We should learn to recognize different plants.

C．We should follow all the laws in our country.

D．We should avoid taking wild plants as food.