Jute planting has a long history in China. As early as the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a description of the morphological characteristics of jute in the Graphic Materia Medica (106 1): "The leaves are long and narrow. Stem square. Four or five feet tall. Yellow flowers. Have a baby and a house. As small as a flax horn. Young leaves are edible. Very slippery. Good for the large intestine. Leather can also be used to make cloth. As crisp as marijuana. It is usually called jute. Actually, it's black. As thin as leek seeds. Bitter as gall. " In the Convenient Map of Ming Dynasty (1502 or earlier), there is a record of jute cultivation techniques: "Planting hemp. This land should be fertile and moist. Plant in April as soon as possible. It is acceptable if June is late. Every secret place is long. " It can be seen that jute was cultivated and utilized in China as early as 1 1 century ago.
China's jute is not only rich in cultivated varieties, but also widely distributed in wild jute. Since 1970s, through resource investigation and special investigation, relevant scientific research institutes and universities have successively collected wild related plants such as long-fruited jute, round-fruited jute and false jute in Yunnan, Sichuan, Fujian, Hainan and Henan provinces. According to data, wild jute is also distributed in Guizhou, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Anhui, Taiwan Province and other provinces.
In addition, in 1987 and 1988, the international jute organization sent five investigation teams (five member countries including China) to Tanzania and Kenya, and found more than 10 wild species of jute. Among them, Gesneriaceae is widely distributed in both countries, which is wild, uncultured and has no introduction history in the local area. However, no wild or cultivated jute (C. capsule is L.) was found in the area where the expedition team arrived, and no jute was found after consulting the East African Herbarium and related literature.
Cultivated jute is evolved from wild jute and pod jute through long-term natural selection and artificial cultivation and domestication. According to the research of Jianmin Qi et al. (1997), the evolutionary centers of the two jute cultivars are located in the Indo-China-Myanmar region in southern China.