Abstract:In order to clear the potential distribution region of rare plant Camellia nitidissima, the Maxent model was used to simulate the potential suitable habitats of C. nitidissima in China based on its distribution data as well as combined with climate, elevation, land use types and other environmental data, and then it was verified by using the ROC curve analysis method. The results showed that the suitable growth area of C. nitidissima was mainly located in the southwest areas of China, which is coincident with the known native sites, but not limited to sites already reported. The AUC area was 0.992 by using ROC curve, indicating that the predicting results were reliability. The major environmental factors affected C. nitidissima distribution (threshold) by Jackknife test included the annual average temperature (24.3℃), accumulated temperature (7 515.84℃), humidity in the driest season (14.5%), and average temperature in the wettest season (26.2℃). The disturbance of human activities to the habitat of C. nitidissima was evaluated quantitatively by Buffer analysis. All of these would be helpful for setting out conservation planning of C. nitidissima.