ENG-1959 — Page 380

FAUNA AND FLORA

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anywhere in the world. Its origin is unknown; it is a sterile hybrid, never producing seed.

A new and distinct species of Camellia was discovered in 1955 and named Camellia granthamiana. Hybridizing has been carried out by the Gardens Division of the Urban Services Department, to cross this new species with C. hongkongensis.

Fruit-bearing herbs including several wild hollies, Melodinus, Strychnos, wild kamquat, Gardenia, Maesa, Mussaenda (the Buddha's Lamp'), Dichroa, several species of Callicarpa, Dianella in the lily family, Raphiolepis (the so-called Hong Kong haw- thorn), wild jasmine and wild persimmon.

Among fruits that are either poisonous or useful for medicine are Strophanthus, Strychnos, Gelsemium and Cerbera, abundant near the sea. Edible fruit includes a wild jack-fruit, Artocarpus, rose-myrtle fruits and wild bananas. Several species of persimmon are wild, but their fruits are too astringent to be eaten raw.

There are numerous plants which closely resemble their European relatives. Old Man's Beard, the common Clematis of the English hedgerow, has five close relatives here. There are four wild violets, but, like the English dog violet, they are scentless. English honeysuckle has five relatives; their Cantonese name is 'Kam ngan fa' (gold and silver flower), given because of their change in colour with age from white to yellow.

There is a fine wild Iris, further south than any other true Iris, and a wild lily growing on some hillsides, with individual flowers sometimes seven inches long. By the sea a wild Crinum is found, and also Belamcanda, in the Iris family.

In damp ravines may be found Chirita, several begonias, a fragrant-leaved rush, stag's horn mosses, numerous orchids, giant aroids, tree-ferns and countless kinds of smaller ferns, including maidenhair and the local Royal ferns. On hillsides, English bracken, a cosmopolitan plant, grows together with the so-called Hong Kong bracken, Gleichenia, and a fragrant-leaved myrtle called Baeckea.

Two species recorded for the first time are Stuartia villosa and Ormosia indurata. Both are small trees confined to Kwangtung Province. The former belongs to the tea family and has been recently found in a wooded ravine on the south-eastern slope