ENG-1955 — Page 258

GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE

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tangerine, native to South China, was introduced to the West in the seventeenth century by the Portuguese, who trans- planted it to Tangier, then under their control.

Illustrated descriptions of some of the Colony's trees will be found in the Hong Kong Annual Reports for the years 1950-3.

The flora of Hong Kong Island has been fully, though not completely, described in Flora Hongkongensis, by G. B. Bentham, published in 1861, and in the descriptive Flora of Kwangtung and Hong Kong, by S. T. Dunn and W. J. Tutcher, published in 1912. Less comprehensive works include a small book, remarkable for its excellent drawings, by L. Gibbs, entitled Common Hong Kong Ferns; an illustrated but unfinished series, The Flowering Plants of Hong Kong, by A. H. Crooks; Plants of Lan Tau Island, by F. A. McClure, which appeared in the Lingnan University Science Bulletin series for 1931; and numerous papers published in The Hong Kong Naturalist. Since the war, three official publications, in the series Food and Flowers, have appeared, giving, amongst other information, articles on some of the more conspicuous wild plants of the Colony.

The flora of the Colony is tropical, but this is about the northern limit of tropical flora. The alternation between hot humid summers and cool dry winters results in a dormant period for tropical plants during winter. These conditions promote the development of large flowers borne at definite seasons of the year. The consequence is that a genus represented in Hong Kong and also in equatorial countries produces here a greater wealth of flowers of larger size.

There is a considerable diversity of flowering shrubs and trees, including magnolia, Michelia, Rhodoleia, Illicium, and Tutcheria. Six species of rhododendron grow wild; there is also a wild Gordonia and wild roses. The heather family is represented by a pink-belled Enkianthus, flowering at the time of the Chinese New Year. A Litsea also blooms at this time.

Bauhinia Blakeana, named after a former Governor, Sir Henry Blake, and discovered by the fathers of the Missions Etrangères at Pokfulam, is among the finest of the Bauhinia genus anywhere in the world. Its origin is unknown; it is a sterile hybrid, never producing seed.