neighbourhood trees: the top ten

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been photographing many of the trees in my immediate neighbourhood. Some of our local trees are quite impressive, and it’s often impossible to get far enough away to capture the entire tree in a single shot. I haven’t attempted to rank these arboreal behemoths in any kind of order, but what follows is my assessment of the top ten.

If you come into the area from Fanling’s industrial district via Lok Tung Street, you will notice a path to the left immediately after crossing the Ma Wat River. There is a large banyan a short distance down this path:

The large leaves nearest the camera are not part of this tree.

And this is a closer view from the same direction:

Continuing along this road, now without a name after crossing the river, this is what you will see shortly before reaching the entrance to Ma Wat Wai (wai is Cantonese for ‘walled enclosure’):

The road continues into the darkness on the left, and this is the view from the other side:

This is also a banyan, and it has many more aerial roots than my first example.

This is a close-up view of the tree from the side opposite the road, showing the profusion of aerial roots:

Shortly after passing Ma Wat Wai, there is a T-junction. Turning right here leads first to Lo Wai and then to the Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall. Opposite the entrance tower of Lo Wai is this cinnamomum:

Part of the enclosing wall of Lo Wai can be seen in the bottom left of this photo.

Like many cinnamomum trees, this one leans heavily to one side and has been propped up, as you can see in this photo, taken looking back from the ancestral hall:

More of the walls of Lo Wai can be seen in this photo.

Continuing past the ancestral hall, the road eventually comes to an end next to Tung Kok Wai. There is a small park here, with another banyan in one corner:

You can see the gatehouse of this wai through a gap in the buildings on the right. You may also notice the hessian sacking around the trunk of the tree. This is an indication that the tree is afflicted by brown root rot, which is caused by a fungus (Phellinus noxius) and can prove fatal for the tree because it inhibits the tree’s ability to suck up water. The sacking has been impregnated with a suitable fungicide. I hope it works.

This is what the tree looks like from the opposite side:

Returning to the T-junction that I mentioned above and turning left instead of right, there is a short dead-end road on the right that leads to a short path. The next tree, which you can see along this path, does look pretty impressive, but it isn’t possible to photograph the entire tree because it’s surrounded by industrial panelling—the only quasi-industrial site in the entire neighbourhood:

This is a closer view:

The path leads eventually to the Wing Ning Wai Sitting-Out Area, where I often sit in quiet contemplation. There is another cinnamomum leaning at a crazy angle here:

This one hasn’t been propped, although it does appear that a couple of large branches were sawn off at some point in the distant past. This is a view from further inside the park:

Behind the camera position for the previous photo is another imposing tree, just outside the park:

The road that we turned off to see the previous three trees continues, eventually reaching the Ma Wat River. Some time after photographing these trees, I was walking along this road when I spotted an obvious candidate for inclusion in my top ten:

This is the view from a position to the left of the previous photo:

Hmm! I thought, another tree with a ladder propped against the trunk. However, a short while later, I was sitting in the park once again when it dawned on me: they’re the same tree!

And that’s a comprehensive survey of my favourite trees south of Sha Tau Kok Road, a major highway and the only road out of Fanling to the east. The next tree in this collection, another banyan, is located alongside the path that we used to follow whenever we walked into Fanling from the village where we live. Thanks to the Fanling North New Development Area, this path no longer exists, apart from the short section before it crosses the Ma Wat River. This shot was taken looking back towards the village:

There is a banyan on Sha Tau Kok Road next to the main entrance to San Wai Barracks, one of several bases now occupied by the People’s Liberation Army. This is a view from the east, looking across the roundabout that marks the junction with the road leading to the newly built Queen’s Hill Estate, which has blighted the view from our balcony:

This is a closer view:

The sign on the wall next to the tree reads ‘Gallipoli Lines’, which is what this base was called in British times.

Finally, there is an obvious path that starts next to Tung Kok Wai and leads across what we refer to as ‘the swamp’, a large waterlogged area that may once have been cultivated. This path leads eventually to Po Kak Tsai. Whenever we come this way, we don’t follow the road here. Instead, we follow a path that runs above the road, and just before the path rejoins the road, there is a large banyan:

The nature of the terrain here makes it impractical to take photos from other angles.

And that’s my top ten trees in our immediate neighbourhood, most if not all of which will have been deliberately planted to enhance the fung shui of the area. However, there are also a few rubber trees in the neighbourhood, and although none are as impressive as the trees I’ve included here, whenever I see one, I’m reminded of all the people back home in the UK who keep rubber plants in pots in their living rooms. This is how big these could get if given the chance:

Technically, this tree isn’t in our immediate neighbourhood. It’s about 4km northeast of our village, but it’s the largest rubber tree I’ve ever seen, and it’s within walking distance, so I’ve chosen to include it here.

Also in the same general area, in the village of Sheung Shan Kai Wat, is this banyan, which is the equal of any of the other trees in this collection but doesn’t qualify as ‘in the neighbourhood’:

But I like it.