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

autumn flowers #3

When I posted Autumn Flowers last month, I had no expectation that I would continue to find many new examples as I walked along the various paths in my neighbourhood. However, I think I know why so many plants are flowering at a time of year when nature is shutting down for the winter in more temperate climates. Flowering is induced by the photoperiod—the length of daylight—and because it is still very warm here (30 degrees yesterday), the vegetation doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘dormant’.

Anyway, here is the latest collection:

This is the only example I’ve come across of these spindly red flowers, on the path that I follow when walking into Fanling:

…apart from this singular example from another location, which provides a good close-up:

The flowers in the next photo are over-exposed, because as I pointed out in an earlier collection, my camera exposes the image based on the darker background of the leaves:

The yellow flowers in the next photo are only 4–5mm in diameter and would be easy to miss if you weren’t actually looking for them:

There is also a single tiny blue flower in the photo, which I haven’t seen anywhere else.

I’ve often seen people picking the blue flowers in the next photo, so I assume that they have some function in traditional Chinese herbal medicine:

The next photo is of Hong Kong’s ‘national’ flower, bauhinia. As you can probably see, it’s a tree flower, and these trees are planted widely throughout the territory:

The next photo shows another flower that isn’t particularly common. The pinnate leaves at the top of the photo are of a very small tree that grows along river banks and produces large numbers of seed pods, although I’ve never seen the flowers:

I featured a photo of the yellow flowers in the next photo in Autumn Flowers, but I’ve included this image in this collection to show just how impressive they look en masse:

The next photo shows what I refer to as ‘red pom-poms’. This plant has been used as a hedge between our local river and the Drainage Services access road that runs alongside the river:

And here are three close-ups to show how attractive, and unusual, these flowers are:

You will notice that the flower buds are also unusual.

These hedges are usually strimmed regularly, but presumably because of the coronavirus pandemic, strimming operations have been curtailed, and as a result, a flower that I’d never seen before has made an appearance underneath the pom-pom hedge:

I spotted this flower on the opposite side of the access road, where it has presumably also escaped the strimmer:

And a small tree with attractive purple flowers has been widely planted alongside the access road:

Finally, I spotted this vine growing on a wire fence alongside the path from our village to Fanling:

The flowers are actually pink!

more autumn flowers
Autumn Flowers
Autumn Flowers #2
Autumn Flowers #4

hares meet tortoise

I usually have a few subjects in mind that I intend to write about eventually, but it sometimes happens that when I wake up in the morning, I have no idea that by the end of the day I will have a readymade subject for my next post (recent examples include Fish out of Water, Hidden History #3, Down by the Riverside and Boardom). It happened again yesterday, when Paula and I were out cycling.

Since the ‘closed area’ status of ‘the frontier road’ was removed in 2013, we’ve cycled along this scenic route dozens of times, but there was an obvious limit to how far west we could go, because it eventually reaches a road that leads to the Lok Ma Chau crossing point into China. And this road carried a lot of taxis, minibuses and tour buses travelling at high speed, making it too dangerous to venture onto on a bike.

However, this border crossing has been closed since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and this has allowed us to cycle further west, at least as far as San Tin. And as part of this extended excursion, we also cycle down Tun Yu Road, even though it’s a dead end:

This is an unmanned—and apparently seldom used—crossing point into China. In fact, the road carries very little traffic and is a relaxing diversion. And there is one point of interest: about 100 metres before we reach the gate, there is a footbridge across a river that runs alongside the road (which is hidden on the right in the next photo). Access to this footbridge appeared to be blocked by a gate, but on one occasion recently I noticed that the gate was ajar, so of course we stopped to take a closer look:

This is a view of the river, looking upstream. There is an inflatable dam directly below the footbridge, so a lot of floating vegetation has backed up behind it. I refer to this vegetation as ‘water hyacinths’, which may not be an accurate identification, but the flowers certainly look like hyacinths to me:

Anyway, we were cycling quite rapidly—‘leisurely’ does not exist in my cycling lexicon—down the section shown in this photo:

Paula suddenly braked sharply.

“Tortoise!” she shouted.

I’d already noticed what I’d assumed was merely a large animal turd and, because I was close behind her at the time, complained that I’d just left ten dollars’ worth of rubber on the road.

Anyway, having stopped, I thought that we might as well take a closer look (and a few photographs):

“Look!” I said. “There’s another one.”

It appeared to be stuck under the railing:

Meanwhile, the first tortoise had decided to move:

I didn’t think it could negotiate the kerb:

…but it had absolutely no trouble doing so:

And it ‘quickly’ joined its companion:

And that’s where we left them.

I included two photos of tortoises in Photographic Highlights 2019–20: Part 2, so when I came home, I decided to consult the website of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, where I was able to download a list of all the reptiles that are indigenous to Hong Kong. Tortoises are not on that list, so these two animals are the descendants of pets that have been released into the wild, which I’d conjectured was the case with respect to the creatures I’d photographed last winter.

autumn flowers #2

After posting Autumn Flowers last month, I’ve continued to photograph flowers whenever I’ve come across them, and here is a collection of these recent photos. As with my earlier post, I can’t provide identification of most of these examples.

The flowers in the first photo look like the kind that people would like in their gardens, although as far as I know they’re wild:

The next photo is of the only example of this flower that I’ve seen anywhere:

I have no hesitation in labelling the plant in the next photo a ‘weed’. It is by far the most common around these parts:

The petals of these flowers wither and drop off very quickly, so it is difficult to take good close-up photos, but here are a couple of the best I’ve managed to date:

The first photo also features some tiny, blue, orchid-like flowers, which are only 5–6mm across.

And to emphasize this plant’s weed-like qualities, I took the following photo this morning on a path between our village and the main road. This is what happens if you don’t continually clear paths of vegetation:

Morning glory is an extremely common vine hereabouts, with attractive mauve flowers:

However, it does spread quickly if given the chance. I took the following photo yesterday in the San Tin area. Paula spotted the display through the trees to one side, and we spent several minutes looking for a way to get close enough to take a photo:

The next photo is of a common ground creeper with attractive yellow flowers. I took a cutting a couple of years ago, which I was able to propagate when I returned to Penrith. Unfortunately, once I’d transplanted it to my garden, it was eaten by bloody slugs! I’ll probably try again sometime:

The next photo also appears to be of some kind of vine, although this one is much less common:

There is an area in our neighbourhood that I’ve labelled ‘the swamp’, because it is permanently waterlogged. It may once have been rice paddy, but rice hasn’t been grown in Hong Kong for decades. Nowadays, you can see a lot of ginger flowers here, and this is a typical scene:

I couldn’t get a close-up of the flowers without getting my feet wet, but this is one that I took in a different location:

Ginger is an important condiment in Cantonese cuisine, and I often see people in the swamp getting their feet wet to dig up the ginger roots.

Paula and I have a running ‘argument’ about the colour of the flowers in the next photo. I think they’re blue, while Paula thinks they’re purple. I should point out that my camera over-exposes light-coloured objects against a darker background, and the flowers are actually much darker in colour:

And they’re blue!

The next photo is of what appears to be some kind of pea or bean plant. It has been planted by farmers alongside the footpath that connects our village and Fanling:

I actually know the scientific name of the plant in the next photo. It’s Mimosa pudica, known colloquially as ‘shy plant’. The reason for this is simple: if you stroke the edges of the leaves, they fold up, and if you strike them sharply, the entire stem collapses:

The final photo in this collection is a close-up of the flowers of a paper-bark tree. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be able to take such a photo, but I took this one from a footbridge across the only road that leads east from Fanling:

I already have enough photos for a third collection of autumn flowers, which I’ll be posting later this week.

more autumn flowers
Autumn Flowers
Autumn Flowers #3
Autumn Flowers #4