ENG-1955 — Page 153

PUBLIC HEALTH

I I I

being 63 feet in diameter and 20 feet in circumference, bearing an average of 330 blooms on a single stem plant.

The botanical section is primarily concerned with the care of the Colonial Herbarium, housed in an air-conditioned room in the University. The collection comprises some 26,000 specimens, and is largely the work of botanists and plant explorers in China at the beginning of the century. Specimens and data are continually being added as areas in the remoter parts of the Colony are again botanically surveyed. There is regular exchange of plant material with overseas institutions.

This year a new variety of camellia, hitherto unknown in Hong Kong, was discovered.

A communication received from Kew as this Report goes to press confirms that this is "a very distinct new species", and that it is "almost incredible" that so distinct a plant, with such large flowers, should be found growing within a few miles from the urban centre of Kowloon. The camellia was found at Shing Mun.

War Cemeteries

On 20 February the Governor unveiled the Memorial at Sai Wan Military Cemetery, in the presence of relatives and friends of the fallen (many of whom had travelled to Hong Kong from the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia), representatives of the Commonwealth Governments, the Board of Admiralty, the Army Council, the Air Council, various religious denominations, ex-Service bodies, local Forces, and Government and civil organizations.

The Memorial, which is in the form of a shelter with a forecourt, is set at the entrance to the cemetery in an imposing natural setting, about 300 feet above sea-level, and com- memorates 2,056 officers and men of the Land Forces of the Commonwealth who gave their lives in the defence of the Colony in 1941, or subsequently died in captivity, and who have no known grave. Within the cemetery are more than 1,500 individual graves of their comrades. In the Stanley Military Cemetery there are another 660 individual war graves, and other small groups of war graves exist in other cemeteries.

The Chairman of the Urban Council, who is the local representative of the Imperial War Graves Commission, supervises the maintenance of all war graves and memorials, and is responsible for local administration. All construction work is supervised by the Public Works Department.