Botany on CUHK Campus
Student Project No. 5
25 April 2005


Team Members
* Chan Wah Chung
* Chin Sing Yu
* Choi Sheung Hei
* Li Sai Hung
* Mak Kwan Ping
* Shum Chung Tin
* Wong Yin Tone
* Hui Ka Yan
* Lau Ngou Ting
* Leung Hiu Nam
* Lee Hao Yi
* Lee Hong Kau

St. Paul's Co-educational College

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Codiaeum variegatum 灑金榕 
Common name: Croton
Family name: Euphorbiaceae

Features
* Ornamental shrub/ hedge plant
* Angiosperm
* Dicotyledonous plant
* Usually 0.9-1.8m tall

Features
* Leaf
  * Coloured with streaks, dots and 
    blotches in green, red, pink, orange, yellow
  * Thick 
  * Smooth
  * Short-stalked

Features
* Flower
  * Flowering in summer
  * Inconspicuous, unisexual 
  * Separate, narrow spikes about several inches long
  * White male flowers
  * Green female flowers
* Fruit
  * Small
  * Green


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Livistona chinensis 蒲葵
* Common name: Chinese Fan Palm
* Family name: Palmae

Features
* Tolerant for most areas
* Symmetrical canopy with regular outline
* Palm-shaped, upright crown
* Coarse texture

Features
* Fruit
  * Round
  * Fleshy
  * Black, blue
  * Not showy
* Trunk and branches
  * Upright
  * Showy trunk
  * No thorns
  * Resistant to breakage
  * No crown shaft
Features
* Foliage
  * Spiral leaf arrangement
  * Star-shaped leaf
  * Evergreen broadleaf
  * Long leaf blade length
  * No fall colour change
* Flower
  * White 
  * Inconspicuous 
  * Not showy
  * Bloom in spring and summer

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Bambusa vulgaris cv. Vittata
黃金間碧竹
* Common name: Painted bamboo
* Family name: Gramineae


Features
* General descriptions
  * Open clump 
  * Lemon yellow culms
  * Exquisite green stripes 
  * Dark green leaves
  * Colour fades out of the poles when harvested
* Shoots
  * Edible
  * Remain buttercup yellow after cooking
  * Can tolerate mild frost

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Callistemon viminalis 串錢柳 
* Common name: Weeping bottlebrush
* Family name: Myrtaceae 

Features
* Introduced from Australia
* Most widely cultivated of all bottlebrushes
* Evergreen plant
* Small tree with pendulous foliage, reaching a height of about 10 m
* Grows best with a reliable water supply
* Easily damaged by moderate to heavy frost
* Responds to pruning 


Features
* Thick bark with deep longitudinal cracks
* Flexible branches bending downward
* Bisexual red flowers on inflorescences which look like bottle brush
  and usually seen in spring and sometimes in autumn, 
  about 70 mm long by 50 mm diameter
* Simple leaves alternately and linearly grown
* Leaves aromatic

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Salix babylonica 柳
* Common name: weeping willow
* Family name: Salicaceae

Features
* Rapid growth rate
* Prefers growing in moist soil
* Fine texture
* Have invasive roots
* Reddish brown stems in winter 
* Susceptible to canker
* Brittle wood

Features
* Drooping branches
* Very narrow, lance-shaped leaves 
* Leaves with finely serrated margin, 
  alternately grown, yellow-green above, milky green below
* Very slender, smooth, olive-green twigs
* Greyish brown and irregularly furrowed bark
* Non-showy, dioecious flowers

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Melaleuca leucadendron 白千層 

* Common name: Paper-bark tree 
* Family name: Myrtaceae 

Features
* Introduced from Australia
* Multi-layered peeling, spongy bark
* Evergreen leaves
* Simple, alternate, narrowly elliptical leaves
* Aromatic leaves
* Spiky white flowers that look like bottle brush 
* Greyish brown, hemispherical fruit

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Camellia Crapnelliana 克氏茶 
* Common name: Crapnell's Camellia 
* Family name: Theaceae


Features

* Originated in Hong Kong
* Evergreen shrubs (2-10 m)
* Tree trunks reddish brown when mature
* Elliptic, rigidly leathery leaves 
* White flower 
  (4-10 cm in diameter) with 6-8 petals, 
  among the largest in Theaceae
* Big, rigid, round, reddish brown fruits; usually ripe in summer 


Features
* Seed oil can be used for cosmetics or cooking
* Usually growing along hill edges
* Protected under the Forests and Countryside Ordinance

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Ficus benjamina 垂葉榕

- Family name: Moraceae
- Common name: Weeping Fig

Features

- Uses: Hedge, suitable for growing indoors
- Height:  45-60 feet tall
- Crown:  Dense, round and smooth outline
- Acute leave tips 
- With milky latex
- Presence of aerial roots

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Lagerstroemia indica  紫薇

Common name: Crape myrtle 
Family name: Lythraceae

Features
* Small-sized deciduous tree
* Prefers warm and moist environments, widely planted in sub-tropical regions
* Very smooth bark, greyish brown in colour, with thin strips scaling off
* Simple, elliptical, alternate leaves


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Taxodium distichum 落羽杉 

Features
* Usually found near wetlands 
* Pale green, needle-like leaves 
* Leaves turn coppery red in autumn before falling 

Features
* Buttressed trunks that grow thick toward the base
* With “knees” for plants that grow in wet sites 

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Bougainvillea spectabilis 簕杜鵑
   
* Common Name: Bougainvillea 
* Family Name: Nyctaginaceae 
* Origin:  Brazil 

Features
* Shrubby, climbing by thorns
* About 3m in height
* High wind, drought and sun tolerance
* No known pests or diseases for this plant
* Flowering all year round

Features
* A woody vine consisting of: 
* a. grass-green leaves, 
* b. strong thorns and 
* c. small white flowers surrounded by the purple-red bracts (苞片), 
     often erroneously taken as petals 
* Flowers usually in groups of three 
* Constantly blooming but fruits are rare
* Grows best in dry conditions.

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Prunus persica 桃
* Common name: Peach
* Family name: Rosaceae

Features

* Size and outlook
  * Low, broad tree
  * 15-25 feet tall, with equal or greater spread
  * Rounded crown
* Branches
  * Upwardly-reaching
* Leaves
  * Alternate, arranged on short shoots
  * Lanceolate, simple
  * Serrated
  * 3 to 6 inches long
  * Dark green 
  * deciduous

Features
* Flower
  * Flowering from January to April
  * Petals white, pink, red 
  * Mostly double flowers
* Fruit 
  * Round
  * 3-6 inches in diameter
  * Fleshy 
  * Mature in July, August

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Ficus microcarpa 細葉榕


* Common name: Chinese banyan 
* Family name: Moraceae

Features
* Up to 60 feet
* Large, widespread, dense canopy of 60 to 70 m wide
* Aerial roots all over the branches
* Produce milky latex

Features
* Leaves
  * Oval-shaped
  * Evergreen
  * Smooth
  * Short
  * Small in size
  * No acute tips

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Cinnamomum camphora 樟樹

* Common name: Camphor tree
* Family name: Lauraceae

Features
* An evergreen tree
* Longitudinally furrowed bark
* Yellowish-green flowers

Features
* Leaves
  * Tri-nerved
  * Ovate in shape
  * Emit a characteristic camphor odour when crushed
  * Wavy margin

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Plumeria rubra 雞蛋花

Common name: Nosegay, Frangipani 
Family name: Apocynaceae

Features
* Originated in Central America, around Mexico and Panama

Features
* Two strains: 
  - White flowers with the central part being yellow; 	
    have acute leaves
  - Red flowers with the central part being yellow;
    have obtuse leaves

* Flower:
  - 5 overlapping petals
  - Bisexual
  - In branched clusters at the branch ends 
  - Flowering in summer
  - Fragrant
  - Used for making wreaths and as an ingredient for 
    Five-Flower Herb Tea 

Features
* Leaf:
  - Acute leaf apex and base
  - Stiff texture
  - Dark-green
  - Conspicuous veins
  - Crowded at the branch ends
  - Simple and alternate


Features
* Branches:
  - Low-branching
  - Fleshy and cylindrical
  - Conspicuously marked with the scars of fallen leaves
  - Exudes whitish sticky latex when broken or injured 

* Bark:
  - Grey