PREFACE. 



The little island of Hongkong is situated off the southern coast of 

 China, at the mouth of the Canton river, between lat. 22° 9' and 22° 21' 

 N. It consists of a rugged mountain ridge, running from east to west, 

 broken into three or four peaks attaining an elevation of between 1700 

 and 1800 feet above the level of the sea, and intersected by deep narrow 

 ravines. It is of very irregular outline, cut into deep inlets, especially 

 on the south coast, where the hills occasionally slope down to a broad 

 sandy beach, whilst several of the headlands terminate in perpendicular 

 cliffs. Its greatest length is about eight miles, by a breadth of little 

 more than four, and has an area of rather more than twenty-nine square 

 miles. It is separated from the opposite hilly, and in some places more 

 elevated, mainland by a strait, variously called Cap-Syng-Moon, or 

 Cum-Sing-Moon, # which in its narrowest part (the Lye- Moon pass) is 

 only half a mile in breadth, and, opposite to our newly acquired district 

 of Kowloon, expands into a capacious harbour. 



What we know of its physical condition and climate as affecting its 

 Flora, is chiefly derived from the " Remarks on the physical aspect and 

 vegetation of Hongkong," published by the late Mr. R. B. Hinds, in 

 Hooker's ' London Journal of Botany,' vol. i. p. 476 (1842), and from I)r. 

 B. Seemann's ' Introduction to the Mora of Hongkong,' in his Botany 

 of the Voyage of H.M.S. Herald (1857). Both these writers repre- 

 sent its general aspect, especially when viewed from the south-east 

 during the dry or winter season, as barren and bleak in the extreme, 

 and apparently denuded of anything like arborescent vegetation. The 

 more sheltered valleys and ravines, on the contrary, on the northern and 



* So it is explained by Seemann. Other authorities restrict the name of Cap-Syug -Moon 

 to the pass lying between the Isle of Lautao and the mainland. 



