A handy guide to identifying the 4 common Hong Kong Bauhinia trees
Use this handy guide (click to enlarge) for spotting the different Bauhinia trees most common in Hong Kong. Flowering period is a big giveaway with ‘purpurea’ stopping flowering just as ‘variegata’ starts. But notice that Bauhinia blakeana flowers the longest, from October to April – an incredible 6 months! That’s partly because of it being sterile and not being able to produce seeds. Instead it just flowers and flowers and flowers.
There have been some reports of Bauhinia blakeana producing seeds but they’ve never been confirmed. If you could find the seeds of a blakeana it would be an incredible discovery! Why not take part in Bauhinia Watch and see if you can go down in history as the discoverer of a truly rare plant?
You can learn more about Bauhinia Watch here.