BOTANY OF HONGKONG. (1)
While on this subject, it might be mentioned that one of the earliest visitors to do botanising on the island was Mr. Richard Brinsley Hinds, who was the surgeon aboard H.M.S. Sulphur (see 25-7-33) and thus landed in the first few days of the Colony's existence, in 1841. His name is perpetuated in the scientific name for one of the wild kumquats that grows commonly on the island and mainland.
Other old botanists one might mention are Dr. H. F. Hance, who came out in 1844, and resided here and in Canton for some years; Dr. Berthold Seeman who came out in 1850 aboard H.M. Surveying ship Herald (a name perpetuated in the survey ship at present attached to this station); Mr. Charles Wright, an American botanist who was here in 1854-5, in the course of an exploring expedition from the United States; Dr. W. A. Harland who was Government Surgeon at Hongkong up to 1857, and did much botanical collecting; Lieut.-Col. (afterwards General) J. Eyre who was stationed here with the Royal Artillery about 1853; and Mr. Charles Wilford sent out from Kew Gardens, who made collections of our flora from 1857 to 1858, and Colonel Urquhart, Dr. Dill, Mr. J. C. Bowman, and Mr. T. Alexander who collected Hongkong ferns in the Fifties.
It was on the material gathered by these pioneers of local botany that George Bentham based his "Flora Hongkongensis" published under the authority of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1861.
It might be added as a footnote that Dr. Clarke Abel Smith, who accompanied Lord Amherst's mission to China as far back as 1816, which anchored in Shekpaiwan (Aberdeen) Bay for a while, came ashore on the south of the island and his botanical observations, subsequently published, though indeed brief are the first by any European relating to Hongkong. He noted a great number of ferns, orchids, Baecka, Melastoma, and Rhodomyrtus (though he gives them old-fashioned names).
I give to-day the extract relating to Hongkong from Fortune's book "A Visit to the Tea Districts of China" written in 1847 which was mentioned in yesterday's article. The location of "Green Bank" had been traced through the help of the Land Officer, and a rough sketch plan of the site is given below. I proceed to quote:-
"When I was formerly in Hongkong," says Mr. Fortune, "every one complained of the barren appearance of the island and the intense heat and glare of the sea. Officers in the Army, and others who had been many years in hotter parts of India all agreed that there was a fierceness and oppressiveness in the sun's rays here which they had never experienced in any part of the world.