NATURAL HISTORY
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orchid, bearing flowers four inches across with white petals and a purple lip. Other noteworthy species are the white Susanna orchid, the yellow Buttercup orchid, the pink Bamboo orchid and the purple Lady's Slipper orchid.
There is a fine wild iris, Iris speculatrix, further south than any other true iris. Its violet flower, from two and a half to three inches in diameter, is tinged with bright orange, and blooms from the middle of March to the end of April. A wild lily, Lilium brownii, appears in June with its trumpet flowers up to seven inches in length, white and sometimes purple-streaked. A wild Crinum with long sword-like leaves and bunches of white flowers is found by the sea, and also the Belamcanda, one of the iris family, with red-dotted orange-yellow flowers. Platycodon, the Chinese Bell-flower, is very widely distributed in eastern Asia, being abundant as far north as Manchuria and as far south as Hong Kong. This lovely violet giant harebell is common on grassy slopes on the south side of Hong Kong Island. It is a perennial plant with thick fleshy root stock valued for medicinal purposes and was introduced into cultivation in England as far back as the seventeenth century.
In damp ravines may be found the Chirita, several begonias, a fragrant-leaved rush, stag's horn mosses, giant aroids, tree-ferns and countless kinds of smaller ferns, including maidenhair and the local Royal ferns. On hillsides, English bracken, a cosmopolitan plant, may be seen growing together with the so-called Hong Kong Bracken, a Gleichenia, and a fragrant-leaved myrtle called Baeckea. Other species recorded in recent years are Stuartia villosa, Ormosia indurata and Eryngium foetidum, found on Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong Island and Lantau Island respectively.
Botanical Collections. The Colonial Herbarium, which provided the foundation for the work of Dunn and Tutcher's Flora of Kwangtung and Hong Kong, has been added to considerably since that book was produced. At present over 29,000 specimens are preserved, and members of the public who wish to find out the names of native plants are encouraged to consult the herbarium, which is in the 'Parks and Playgrounds' section of the Urban Services Department.
Societies. In addition to the Colonial Herbarium, interest in flora and horticulture in Hong Kong is fostered by the Hong Kong