The relevance of the study is due to the need for accurate understanding and transmission of the information obtained in the communication of representatives of different cultures, as well as the lack of knowledge of the linguistic and cultural connotations of the phytonomen in Russian and Chinese, especially in the comparative aspect. The subject of the study is the lexeme “aspen” with special linguistic and cultural connotations in the minds of Russians and Chinese. It is concluded that a detailed contrasting study of the connotations of a characteristic phytonomen in two different linguistic cultures promotes cross-cultural communication, expands the horizons of the value system of speakers of different languages and allows people learning a foreign language to avoid unwanted language and cultural conflicts in cross-cultural communication. © 2021, Rossiiskaya Akademiya Nauk, Institut Istorii (Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of General Hist. All rights reserved.