Roots are an important, yet understudied, part of tropical forests. We need to better understand how roots vary with environment. We have measured fine root functional traits for 400 individuals of 50 tree species in Jianfengling, Hainan, China, to look at the root trait variability across a soil and forest age gradient. However, we do not fully know the range of soil environmental conditions across which we have sampled, so we are raising funds for laboratory soil analyses.