autumn flowers #5

Never say “never”! You might think I should have learned that lesson at my age, but when I wrote in Autumn Flowers $4 that it would be the last in the series, I really did think that I couldn’t possibly find enough new examples to justify another post on the subject. However, autumn is drawing to a close, and I haven’t seen any new flowering plants for the past week, so this will definitely be the last. Several of the plants in this survey were not in flower two weeks ago, so I would have walked past them without a second glance.

On the other hand, my first photo was taken last month, between posting #1 and #2, and I somehow forgot to include it in either collection:

The next photo was taken just a day later, while I was exploring the Tam Mei valley, and from a distance I thought it was bougainvillea, even though pink bougainvilleas are very uncommon. As you can see, it looks nothing like bougainvillea:

The remaining photos were taken between 13th and 21st November.

I was walking along a path in my immediate neighbourhood when I noticed two elderly ladies ahead. They were pointing at something by the side of the path. Whether the object of their attention had some medicinal value or was simply extremely rare I’m unable to say, but this is what they were looking at:

I took the next photo just 20 minutes later, on a path that I don’t often walk along, but the Drainage Services Department (DSD) access road along the river is blocked because major road construction work is just beginning, and it does help to know that there are alternatives:

I mentioned the rafts of floating vegetation on an unnamed river that runs parallel to Tun Yu Road in Hares Meet Tortoise, but I’ve since been able to scramble down to the bank of the river, where I took the next photo. I always refer to these flowers as ‘water hyacinths’, although that’s unlikely to be their official name:

There are just a few flowers in the previous photo, but I included two photos of a large pond next to the Ng Tung River, just before it flows across the border into Shenzhen, in Photographic Highlights: 2019–20, Part 1 that is completely covered in flowers.

DSD workers had been clearing vegetation from the banks of the river, and I took the next photo directly behind the camera position of the previous photo. The small white flowers were quite striking despite the debris:

I took the next photo from a bridge over the Ma Wat River, which I have to cross (via a different bridge) when walking into Fanling. I think that this tree must be related to the trumpet-shaped yellow flowers that I included in Autumn Flowers #4, although this is a tree, and the other plant is just a shrub. And the flowers are smaller and the leaves much narrower:

I’ve taken several photos of examples of the bush in the next photo and not used them, because I expected the flowers to open out. But they don’t. This is what you get:

There aren’t many plants that employ aerial seed dispersion, but the next photo shows one of them. This plant appears to be distantly related to the English dandelion, but that is merely speculation:

The small bush in the next photo, which was growing alongside a cul-de-sac near where I live, is another example of the flowers being overexposed because my camera exposes for the darker background:

The next photo was taken along the same cul-de-sac. Notice that although most of the flowers are yellow, some are red:

This appears to be the same species, although it was taken some distance away on a path that few people know exists:

I don’t think the next photo does justice to these red flowers, which struck me at the time as quite unusual:

The next photo is of a flowering shrub that I spotted in a small garden next to Fanling station:

Some of the flowers that I’ve included in this series weren’t out when I started, and one morning recently while walking into Fanling from our village, I noticed several examples of the white flowers in the next photo that hadn’t been there the previous day:

I took the final photo when I showed Paula the ‘secret garden’ that I mentioned in Autumn Flowers #4. These flowers weren’t there when I discovered the place:

I don’t rule out posting more photos of flowers in the future. More than 3,000 species of vascular plant have been recorded in Hong Kong, and some of them produce impressive floral displays in season.

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