We recommend you drive, or take a bus, to the New Territories this weekend, for our country roads are literally bursting with life. And if you were delighted by the Degas and Monets at the Hong Kong Museum of Art's recent Impressionism exhibition, you might be as thrilled as we were by the bright, lime-green sproutings of fresh spring leaves and bright flowers whose names we didn't know.
Indeed, Foot Down was so struck by the beauty of these purple flowers (picture 6) in Cheung Sha, Lantau, recently that we hit the road again, at 30km/h, last Saturday, and photographed roadside trees and flowers that looked nice, in the hope a botanist could tell us what their names are.
So, a big thank you to K.L. Yip of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department Department, who helped us with our captions, in the hope they encourage you and a co-driver to check out the fabulous flora on your doorstep.
We also invite you to contribute to the Foot Down blacklist of 'sticky' sap-oozing trees you might avoid parking under. For example, Australian readers say gum trees play havoc with paintwork, but we shall think twice before parking under a cotton tree in future. Their pretty flowers, the symbols of Guangzhou, are dropping with a bang - and potentially hard on bonnets (picture 2) - from a great height, this week. And bikers might agree that their squish are a potential riding hazard, leading us to believe late Hong Kong singer Roman Tam Pak-sin wouldn't have been so enthusiastic about cotton trees if he've had to send his dented ride for repairs.
Each plant has its own story in books such as Hong Kong Shrubs, (Urban Services Department, 1971). For example, you might whizz by the common Lantana (picture 4) unaware that the book says that it originated in tropical America, is a serious pest in Sri Lanka and Hawaii, and is now naturalised in Hong Kong. The Lantana looks nice close up, but whiffs a bit, leading us to urge our environmentally conscious petrol companies to sell Hong Kong motorists glovebox guides to Hong Kong roadside flora, instead of alcoholic beer and wobbly head David Beckham.
Our government departments might be less modest about their work, too. In the light of our trip - probably the first greeny jaunt by any Hong Kong publication's gas-guzzling petrolheads - we invite the Highways Department to draw readers' attention to their landscaping science that many Hong Kong motorists might take for granted.
