ENG-1956 — Page 329

FAUNA AND FLORA

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trees of the Colony and those of the adjacent southern part of Kwangtung Province. Among the principal trees found in Hong Kong and the New Territories are pine, Chinese banyan, and camphor, to which, since the area came under British administration, have been added a large number of others, of which the most commonly seen are casuarina, eucalyptus and flamboyant.

The principal locally-grown fruits include laichee, lungngan, wong pei, loquat, pomelo, tangerine, banana, papaya, pineapple, custard apple, guava, and Chinese varieties of plum and pear. Of these papaya, pineapple, custard apple and guava were originally introduced from South America by the Portuguese some time after the foundation of Macau. The tangerine, native to South China, was introduced to the West in the seventeenth century by the Portuguese, who transplanted 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. Crook; 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.