Flowers Forever.1

Sunday was a good day. No, it was even better than I expected. I had
been working on a small project of my own for the whole week. I was
dying to go out to have a breath of fresh air and to stretch my legs. I
decided to go to a place I have heard about but never really knew where.
It was the Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden. I took the West Rail, got off at  Kam
Sheung Road Station and then took a No. 64 K bus in the direction of Tai Po. The farm was half way between that station and Tai Po at the top of a stretch of uphill
road.

There were more flowers than I imagined. For someone who
enjoy practising his photographic skills, it was heaven. So what can I
bring down from that heaven?

Upon arrival, I was met by this Flame tree. It has got many names in Chinese like 鳳凰木，火焰樹，火樹，紅火楹，紅花樹，金鳳樹 and 影樹

Look at this blaze of "flames".. .

sticking out their tongues at every available inch of space.

A close up of two of the thousands on that tree!

This is the bud of  another flower whose name I do not know.   

Another bud in a more advanced stage of development. I like the layers of its colors..

Their protected stamens coming out at last.

A view of its stamen and its two tendrils. Why the two tendrils?

A soaked caterpillar in red?

I know the name of these tiny flowers. They're called (really pompously!) the epidendrum radicans (血紅樹蘭)

A closer view of five of its flowers, each with five sepals and four petals plus one long tube like stamen.

A close up of one of its flowers, each petal with 5 tiny slits at its tip.

This is a tiny flower which I found growing at the side of a pond. Don't know its name again.

A closer view of one of its flowers

Probably the same flower a little older. Why the coiled up tail?

The stamens of a really huge flower with its three giant stamens

They seem to be bathed in some water. Was it the rain or its diluted nectar?

Don't know the name of this flower again. Looks as if I'm looking at the underside of a skirt with tens of folds and pleats.

Another big red flower.



Some buds and flower from its neighbor

Some little tube-like flowers radiating from the centre of its flowering branch. I know their name: coral flower (吉祥草 or 炮仗竹)

Does it look as if three girls were sitting on top of the branch, one crouching and bent forward, another swaying its shawl around herself and a third swinging  the lower hem of her pink skirt as in some kind of South American dance?

I really like this team of dancers in the wind.

A closer view of some of them

I wasn't alone. So does this bee!

These leaves are not bad either.



What these leaves lack in color, they make up by form!

Some fresh drops of rain on one of its leaves.

Before I had done half the farm, it was closing time. So I took a quick snapshot of this cluster of orchids hanging near the window of a hot house close to the entrance.

One final shot!  There's a flower within a flower!