Unique Hong Kong Trees Make Life Remarkably Joyful
Hong Kong trees for health and wellness
Rare Hong Kong Trees Protected
Whether exotic or native, rare Hong Kong trees are an investment in the city’s well-being. They are an important aspect of local culture, but also provide concrete benefits to the population.
Every January, the Hong Kong SAR government emails a reminder to thousands of people, including property owners, facilities managers and conservationists. It carries an important message: protect Hong Kong trees.
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Hong Kong boasts considerable biodiversity, but older native trees are rare. Although the region began as a tropical jungle, over hundreds of years, the forests were cleared for agriculture, timber and lime kiln fuel.
Second World War devastating blow to Hong Kong trees
By 1841, Hong Kong was accurately described as a barren rock by British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston. A century later, the Second World War struck a devastating blow to Hong Kong’s trees.
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According to Gavin Coates, Senior Lecturer at the Division of Landscape Architecture at Hong Kong University, “By the end of the war, people were stripping vegetation just to survive. So, most of the trees we see today are just babies.”
Following the war, the government planted the hillsides with fast-growing species from Australia, such as Acacia confusa, eucalyptus and Brisbane box.
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Australian paperbark trees once lined most of the roads in the New Territories; today, they can be seen in front of the Central Library and near Sheung Shui on Fan Kam Road.
Governor Murray MacLehose set up sanctuaries
The vision of a greener Hong Kong gained new life under the influence of Governor Murray MacLehose. Following the population boom of the 1960s, he was instrumental in establishing Hong Kong’s country parks and planting trees in the New Towns.
Coates was one of the landscape architects who worked on Hong Kong’s first major Greening Master Plan.
Greening Master Plan
Under this plan, Hong Kong planted 20,000 trees in older urban areas in Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.
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Despite wartime depredations, a few concentrations of old and valuable trees escaped destruction. Hong Kong Park, Tai Kwun and Kowloon Park were under military control during the Japanese occupation, while the Fan Ling Clubhouse at the Hong Kong Golf Club was used as a regional military command during the Second World War, meaning that some trees, such as mangoes, banyans and camphor were spared.
Register of old and rare Hong Kong trees
“In 2004, the government promulgated a technical circular for the creation of a register of Old and Valuable Trees; it has almost 450 trees on it.
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The OVT Register is still in existence,” says Alexander (Sandy) Duggie, Managing Director of Urbis, a landscape planning company.
Members of the public can easily identify the locations of old and valuable trees around Hong Kong with the help of an interactive map on the government’s Tree Registry website.
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At 1881 Heritage in Tsim Sha Tsui, the entire external works were designed around three heritage trees.
Rare banyan most expensive
The Pacific Place banyan tree, near Island Shangri-La on Justice Drive, is recorded as the most expensive tree preserved in the world: this enormous Ficus microcarpa, dating from 1870, was preserved during the construction of Pacific Place in 1988 with a cylindrical structure ten metres deep and eighteen metres in diameter, built to contain the roots.
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Additionally, the oldest fung shui woodlands in the New Territories date back more than three hundred years and contain many ancient specimens.
In 2002, Hong Kong’s Plant Working Group surveyed 116 fung shui woods; the results can be found at the Hong Kong Herbarium.
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Based on historical references, one camphor tree in She Shan is estimated to be between three and five hundred years of age.
Our city is the home of rare Hong Kong trees. Thirty-eight specimens of Chinese Swamp Cypress trees, critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, live at the old course of the Hong Kong Golf Club out of fewer than 250 total on the planet.
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Once designated as an Old and Valuable Tree, nobody may interfere with or fell it. The penalty depends on the severity of the damage, maliciousness and degree of neglect; fines run into the millions of dollars.
Chinese Swamp Cypress
Today, the greatest threats to these trees are disease and climate change. Largely due to brown root rot, the number of trees on the OVT Register has fallen from its original 520 to 444 today.
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Asia Tree Preservation (ATP) is charged with caring for the trees on the OVT Register.
The company performs original research and uses the latest technologies, like resistographs and stress wave tomography, to assess factors like wood density in trees without harming them. They also use this information to install protective systems and manage the overall health of the trees
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Meanwhile, new threats are putting Hong Kong’s trees in danger.
Jon Picker, Director at ATP, says, “Since 2019, there has been a huge insect infestation moving across Hong Kong like a wave.
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Even some landmark trees are being attacked.” Phauda flammans is a native moth caterpillar whose range is expanding due to the reduction in predators and recent milder winters. The pest arrived near the Western Tunnel at the beginning of 2024 and is expected to spread across Hong Kong Island
The caterpillars of the newly proliferating banyan tussock moth (Perina nuda) also devastate trees, and their allergenic hairs cause a burning rash on people’s skin.
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New treatment applications such as soil and trunk injection can control these insects, lasting six months to a year. Individuals can help stay up to date on Phauda flammans and other tree news via the Facebook group Citizen Tree Lovers.
Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree
Ken So, Chief Executive of the Conservancy Association in Hong Kong emphasises the importance of trees to Hong Kong’s cultural heritage. “Many of the trees have a story behind them, representing the history or development of Hong Kong.”
Hong Kong’s most common and best-known trees are its banyans, belonging to the Ficus genus.
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Half of the trees in the OVT Register are banyans. Many of these trees grow in an unusual way on Hong Kong’s stone walls.
Ian Robinson, Board Member of the International Society of Arboriculture (Hong Kong Chapter), says, “The way the walls were constructed in Hong Kong in the 1800s, roots can grow into the cracks, making them much more stable.
Visiting arborists come to Hong Kong to see them.” The most striking examples are on Forbes Street in Kennedy Town.
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Meanwhile, at almost any banyan tree in a New Territories village, a shrine can be found at the base; some eventually evolve into wishing trees like the famous Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree.
Tree lovers in Hong Kong should take particular note of the common candlenut tree, with its straight trunk, large leaves and large, nutlike fruit. Planted in Hong Kong for more than a hundred years, it was counted as the most common tree in Hong Kong’s urban areas during a survey done in the 1980s.
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The Bombax ceiba, or cotton tree, is identifiable by its single trunk, layering branches and waxy red flowers, which are in bloom this month. “Chinese people know the tree well, and there are Cantonese songs about it,” continues So. “You can make Chinese medicine out of the flower or use the cotton to make pillows; Cotton Tree Drive is named for this tree.”
Hong Kong’s symbolic bauhinia flower, found on the city’s flag and coins, blooms in brilliant fuchsia from December to March.
The Bauhinia blakeana, or Hong Kong orchid, is a grafted flower that cannot grow independently; the trunk is from another species. On any blakeana tree, a bulge from the graft can be seen around one metre above ground.
As severe weather incidents increase, tree cover in Hong Kong will become increasingly important. Coates points out, “Hong Kong is less prone to flooding not only because the land is steep, but because of our tree cover. You can measure it to the dollar.”
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Hong Kong’s characteristic and valuable trees are more accessible than ever before, thanks to a number of new initiatives by both the private and public sectors.
During the pandemic, Coates established the Hong Kong Digital Arboretum, containing over a thousand videos of trees, shrubs and introductions to Hong Kong plants.
In areas such as Hong Kong Park, the Botanical Gardens and Kowloon Park, all trees on the OVT Register are labelled with a name, number and QR code.
The wetland park in Tin Shui Wai, which opened in 2005, now has many mature trees and is increasingly popular.
The Urban Forestry Education Centre in Sham Shui Po opened in June 2023 to promote the benefit of trees to the community and offers activities such as tree drawing and wood workshops.
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At the Hong Kong Golf Club, members of the public can book an ecological and cultural tour to learn more about trees as well as more than 175 species of birds and 125 species of butterflies that live among them.
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They can also see some of Hong Kong’s tallest trees, including eucalyptus trees and two Queensland peppermint trees that stand over thirty metres tall.
Coates reminds Hong Kong residents and visitors to take the time to understand the trees of Hong Kong. “You have a story, and so does the environment. If you know how to read the landscape, it will tell you its story.”
Text Genevieve Hilton / Photo by Genevieve Hilton & Martin Wray
