436 
Mr. J. J. Walker o?i 
immediately behind the city, being 1,804 feet high), are 
generally rather bare in "kspect, with a clothing of long 
grass and brushwood towards the summits, and a 
larger growth of bushes and small trees in the ravines, 
every one of which has its stream of beautifully clear and 
pure water. Some parts of the island, especially on the 
northern slope, appear to be fairly well wooded, as many 
thousands of trees, chiefly a kind of fir (Pinus sinensis), 
have been planted on the hillsides. Along the roads 
near the city are many fine trees of a species of fig 
(Ficus retusa) allied to the Indian banyan. The coco-nut 
palm maintains a precarious existence, and its fruit does 
not appear to reach maturity, but most of the tropical 
and sub-tropical fruits succeed very well. 
The native flora of Hong-Kong is a very rich and 
peculiar one, no fewer than 1,072 species of flowering 
plants and ferns being enumerated by Bentham and 
Hance in the ^' Flora Hongkongensis,'' and of these the 
large number of 173 were known only from the island 
at the time of publication. In character it is distinctly 
tropfcal, notwithstanding the fact that palms are decidedly 
rare, and represented by only two or three rather in- 
conspicuous species. Some of the endemic plants are 
very handsome and remarkable, notably the Gordonia 
anomala, which expands its large and fragrant white 
Magnolia-IWQ flowers in every ravine in January and 
Tebruary; and especially the Rhodoleia chamjpioni, the 
pride of the island flora. This is a small tree of the 
HamamelidesBj or witch-hazel order, with oval leathery 
evergreen leaves, which in February bears a profusion 
of large bell-shaped blossoms of the richest crimson 
colour. Only two or three specimens of this beautiful 
tree have as yet been met with in a wild state, but there 
are some very fine examples in the public gardens and 
elsewhere. Of naturalized species, the " sensitive plant 
{Mimosa pudica) a native of Tropical America, grows 
abundantly in dry waste places; and another shrub from 
the same region {Lantana camera), which has now firmly 
established itself in nearly every tropical country, and 
whose showy red and yellow blossoms are the greatest 
attraction to butterflies of all flowers which I know, has 
taken possession of large spaces near the city, and con- 
tinues to spread year by year. 
Hong-Kong has a distinctly tropical climate, and the 
