252
NATURAL HISTORY
There are several species of camellia growing wild on the island and the mainland. All but one have white flowers; the one with red flowers is known only on Hong Kong Island and grows in the Peak district. It is Camellia Hongkongensis, a small tree up to 40 feet in height which comes into flower in November and continues until the middle of March. A new and distinct camellia was dis- covered in 1955 and named Camellia Granthamiana in honour of the then Governor, Sir Alexander Grantham. Only one tree has so far been found, on the edge of a wooded ravine near the Jubilee reservoir, bearing handsome white flowers 5 inches across, with a dense cluster of golden stamens in the centre. From this solitary tree numerous seeds and grafts have been distributed to many botanical and horticultural institutions abroad.
Many local shrubs and a few herbs have very beautiful fruits in striking colours. The ardisia, the chloranthus and several wild hollies have brilliant red berries. The large orange-like fruits of melodinus, the smaller fruits of strychnos, the wild kamquat and the winged fruits of the gardenia are orange in colour. Numerous yellow fruits with elusive names abound the hillsides, one of which is the maesa. There are many inconspicuous green fruits and berries, one of which is the mussaenda or Buddha's Lamp. Many berries are black with a bluish waxy cuticle, but probably the only true blue is that of the dichroa, a well-known medicinal plant. Several species of callicarpa and dianella bear purplish fruits, while those of the raphiolepis, the so-called Hong Kong Hawthorn, the wild jasmine and the wild persimmon are black. The remarkable star-like fruit of the sterculia turns crimson in late summer and splits open to disclose jet black seeds. At a distance, these open fruits look like large red flowers.
There are several very poisonous plants which should be better known to the general public. These include two species of strychnos which have very brightly coloured fruits resembling small oranges, a species of strophanthus which has conspicuous fruits unmistakable because of their large size and horn-like shape, and a species of gelsemium which is the most poisonous of local plants. The latter is a climber with dense terminal clusters of yellow flowers each about half an inch in diameter, blooming towards the end of the year. All parts of the plant contain the alkaloid gelsemidine, which is a spinal poison. It is said that as little as 12 grammes of leaf