autumn flowers #4

When I posted Autumn Flowers last month, I didn’t expect to find so many examples of such flowers, but this will definitely be the last in the series.

The first photo shows a plant with prominent red flowers that is often used as a hedge separating a cycle track from a busy road, at least in the Fanling area:

I used to think that the flowers in the next photo were those of an acacia, which is a common tree in Hong Kong, even though it isn’t native. The leaves are almost identical, and the flowers are the same colour as those of the acacia, but acacias flower in April, and this one is flowering now:

The bush that produces the trumpet-shaped yellow flowers in the next photo is very common. This photo was taken in the next village to where we live:

The star-shaped yellow flowers in the next photo weren’t out when I posted the first collection in this series, and as you can see, there are still quite a lot of unopened buds:

In fact, when we cycled past this area, opposite ‘happy garden’, on Monday, there were many more flowers than when this photo was taken:

The high-rise residential blocks in the background mark the eastern edge of Fanling, while the circular discs on the right of the photo are a preventive measure to make it difficult for vines to creep up the diagonal wires, which support a power pole. The light-coloured patches below and left of the discs are a particularly invasive species of vine (see below).

The yellowish flowers in the next photo are just bursting into bloom, so I don’t know how much more prominent they will become, although they certainly aren’t common:

In Autumn Flowers #2, I included a flower that has provoked an ongoing ‘argument’ between Paula and me about its colour. The colour in that photo was washed out by direct sunlight, so I present the following photo in support of my contention that these flowers are blue:

The orchid-like mauve flowers in the next photo are the only example of this species, which has managed to poke its way through a mass of competing species, that I’ve seen anywhere:

The next photo is of lantana, which I believe is officially classified as a ‘weed’:

You can see the unusual feature of this species—pink and orange flowers on the same stem—in this photo, but the feature that you will notice immediately if you stray off the beaten path is that it forms an almost impenetrable thicket, as this photo shows:

And it has thorns!

Talking of thorns, the species in the next photo has the most vicious thorns that I’ve seen anywhere:

Fortunately, this is the only example I’ve seen to date, on the path that I follow when walking from our village into Fanling, and there is just a single flower stem.

A couple of days ago, I was walking along our local river when I happened to notice a well-trodden dirt path disappearing into the undergrowth. Naturally, I wanted to see where it led. It turns out that someone had cleared a small patch to grow vegetables, but on my way back, I couldn’t help but notice this single yellow flower:

This is another singular example.

I included two photos of ginger flowers in Autumn Flowers #2, but I thought I would include the following photo, taken along ‘the frontier road’, here:

The high-rise buildings on the horizon are in Shenzhen!

Finally, I alluded earlier to an invasive vine, which is known locally as ‘mile-a-minute’. Obviously, it doesn’t grow that fast, but it does spread rapidly and is almost impossible to eradicate. It isn’t native to Hong Kong—I believe that it comes from the Himalayan region—and it can quickly smother an entire tree. This is what it looks like:

And it isn’t particularly attractive.

more autumn flowers
Autumn Flowers
Autumn Flowers #2
Autumn Flowers #3