The Flowering Shrubs and Trees of Hong Kong
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together from a bud enclosed in imbricate scales, of which the inner ones are lengthened into petiolate oblong, spathulate or linear, coloured bracts. Calyx-lobes lanceolate, varying much in length and breadth, usually 1 to 2 lines long.
Corolla about 1⁄2 inch long; the tube broad, usually pink or deep red; the lobes obtuse, more or less recurved or spreading, and often white. Stamens shorter than the corolla." Bentham (1) p. 200.
A short description of Enkianthus quinqueflorus, the China New Year Flower, was given by Mr. A. H. Crook, in H.K.N. Vol. I, p. 165; also on the plate facing page 166 is a coloured illustration of a shoot with pink young leaves, flowers, and green and red older leaves. In late February of this year we wrote Enkianthus quinqueflorus, to which the honour must be given as being the most beautiful flowering shrub of the first half of February, has now dropped most of its pink bell-like flowers. In their place has developed the beautiful young foliage, yellow-green, olive- pink, pink, or even red in colour. The rosettes of leaves which are held stiffly upwards when young, contrast with the pale pink or deep pink re- Alexed bud-scales and flower-bracts, which persist long after the flowers have dropped. Those bushes which did not flower this year have for a week or more been in full leaf and in these the pink of the leaves has already given place to a uniform green."
Professor F. A. McClure of Lingnan University, Canton has kindly sent us a note on this interesting flowering shrub, which we quote in full below.
"The plant is cultivated in a crude way in certain places, for example in the Ch'un Wong Mountains () west of Tsing Uen () where it also occurs fairly commonly in the natural state. Small plants are brought
in from the wild and set out on the slopes overlooking the villages where they can be protected from unauthorized collectors.
The branches destined for cutting at the end of a given year are * ringed in the Spring before the plants leaf out. an inch in width is removed from around the stem at approximately the A strip of bark about point at which it is to be severed. The immediate result of this is to prevent the food materials elaborated in the leaves from being transferred to the lower part of the stem and the roots. The physiological effect is the assur- ance of an abundant production of flowers the following spring. This is a sound practice, and is often employed by fruit growers in the West, particu- larly with apple trees, to ensure a good crop of Rowers and fruits."
DISTRIBUTION.-South China.
Pak
NAMES. Tiu3 Chung' fa', hanging bell flower, Kei' laang shue,, white hen orchid tree, McClure (7) p. 31, i Tiu chung' fa', hanging bell flower, Hu and Chun (5) p. 46.
ILLUSTRATIONS.---Figure 7 depicts two branched twigs with pendant flowers, old leaves, unopened leafy buds, and young developing leafy shoots distal to opened flowers; insets are of a flower a little greater than life size, a pink bract and two mature leaves. Plate 31 from a photograph by V. H. C. Jarrett, Esq. is of a shoot in full flower.
December 1932.
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