Page:Flora Hongkongensis.djvu/13



little island of Hongkong is situated off the southern coast of China, at the mouth of the Canton river, between lat. 22° 9′ and 22° 21′ N. It consists of a rugged mountain ridge, running from east to west, broken into three or four peaks attaining an elevation of between 1700 and 1800 feet above the level of the sea, and intersected by deep narrow ravines. It is of very irregular outline, cut into deep inlets, especially on the south coast, where the hills occasionally slope down to a broad sandy beach, whilst several of the headlands terminate in perpendicular cliffs. Its greatest length is about eight miles, by a breadth of little more than four, and has an area of rather more than twenty-nine square miles. It is separated from the opposite hilly, and in some places more elevated, mainland by a strait, variously called Cap-Syng-Moon, or Cum-Sing-Moon, which in its narrowest part (the Lye-Moon pass) is only half a mile in breadth, and, opposite to our newly acquired district of Kowloon, expands into a capacious harbour.

What we know of its physical condition and climate as affecting its Flora, is chiefly derived from the "Remarks on the physical aspect and vegetation of Hongkong," published by the late Mr. R. B. Hinds, in Hooker's 'London Journal of Botany,' vol. i. p. 476 (1842), and from Dr. B. Seemann's 'Introduction to the Flora of Hongkong,' in his Botany of the Voyage of H.M.S. Herald (1857). Both these writers represent its general aspect, especially when viewed from the south-east during the dry or winter season, as barren and bleak in the extreme, and apparently denuded of anything like arborescent vegetation. The more sheltered valleys and ravines, on the contrary, on the northern and