48
BEK-TO CHIU
RHODOLEIA CHAMPIONI, HOOK #
吊鐘花
Family: Hamamelidaceae ### 金縷梅科
Common name: King of Hanging Bells
Hooker, who described Rhodoleia from Hong Kong named it championi to commemorate Col. J. G. Champion who was the first to collect this plant while stationed here 1847-1850, as an ensign in the 95th Regiment. Champion wrote on his record “the handsomest of Hong Kong's flowering plants". Hance in 1870 described the flowers as "of extreme beauty and rarity". Justifiable statements to all who are acquainted with the flowers of this plant. Indeed the colour combination of the flowers is uniquely striking and perhaps breathtakingly oriental. The involucre of bracts is of a pale yellow, gold, pink and russet brown; the petals of rose-carmine and the stamens, black. Besides its beauty, the fact that the plant is indigenous and only found on Hong Kong island, is worthy of note.
Bentham described the flowers as having "the appearance of a semi-double Camellia". This is so and they particularly resemble Camellia hongkongensis. The apparent flowers are each composed of a cluster of five flowers, aggregated compactly on a recurved peduncle (and hence "hanging" or pendulous) at the axil of the upper leaves of the branches, with the petals of the flowers arranged at the circumference, held at the base by an involucre of overlapping bracts. This unit is in fact an inflorescence of the capitulum type, comparable with that of a chrysanthemum,
The shrubs or small trees, reaching up to 20 feet high, are evergreens, bearing coriaceous dark green leaves with a bluish bloom on the upper surfaces. The flowers start to bloom from January to March, being at their best in February, the Chinese New Year time. The fruits are woody composite capsules, maturing at the end of six months, when each dehisces both loculicidally and septicidally, setting free many small winged seeds.
Trees of Rhodoleia championi that bloom regularly, are to be found in the New Botanical Gardens, near the Pavilion and in a sheltered valley in Little Hong Kong, off Shouson Hill.
The genus Rhodoleia has two other species: one from China and the other from Java and Sumatra.