The Flowering Shrubs and Trees of Hong Kong
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very divergent, the pair often being more than 9 inches in length from tip to tip. A bush when in full flower may possess several hundred blossoms, rarely do fruits develop from more than a few of these. The pointed seed I inch in length ends in a very beautiful coma of white silky hairs 3 inches in length branching out in a close spiral from a central axis some 1 inches long.
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Figure 5. Strophanthus divergens,
NAME. The local Chinese name is Ngau, Kok, Quor' Cow's Horns' fruit.
ILLUSTRATIONS,——
s.-Plate 19 shows a shrub in full flower, figure 5 is of a bud and opened flower half natural size and figure 6 of a pair of unopened follicles also half natural size.
ECONOMIC USES. Strophanthus kombe and S. hispidus both lianes of tropical Africa, yield Strophanthi semina. The ripe seeds of these and other species contain an active poison, strophanthine, which has long been used for poison- ing arrows in tropical Africa and which is now used in minute quantities as a heart stimulant. The seeds of S. divergens are probably very poisonous. Strophanthus dichotomus with purplish white corolla lobes, native of India and Malaya, is cultivated as an ornamental. S. hispidus is also grown as an ornamental, the petals are yellow.
FLOWERING PERIOD.--End of March to mid-May; the green fruits may be found at the end of July and August, the ripe fruits in the winter months. DISTRIBUTION. Not known out of S. China.
May 1932.
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