FOREST AND FOREST SUCCESSION IN HONG-KONG, CHINA

Hong Kong is on the northern margin of the Asian tropics. The original forest cover was cleared centuries ago but secondary forest has devel oped since 1945 at many sites protected from fire and cutting. There a re also older forest patches maintained behind villages for reasons of 'feng shui', the Chinese system of geomancy. All plants >2 cm dbh wer e identified and measured in forty-four 400-m(2) plots. Detrended corr espondence analysis showed a floristic continuum, with the montane sit es (>500 m) most distinct and some overlap between lowland post-1945 s econdary forest and the feng shui woods. The 30-40 year-old secondary forest is dominated by Persea spp. Montane forest is similar but lacks several common lowland taxa of tropical genera and includes more subt ropical taxa. The feng shui woods have the most complex structure and contain some tree species not found in other forest types. Their origi n and history is obscure but we suggest that both planting and selecti ve harvesting have had a role in their current species composition.