A comparative study of roadside-tree communities in urban Hong Kong and Guangzhou

Abstract

As the major cities of the south China, Hong Kong and Guangzhou have nearly with simi-lar geographical and physical conditions. However, there are significant differences in the char-acteristics and composition of their magnitude of domination have their respective unique fea-tures. As a cosmopolitan city, Hong Kong has introduced more tree species and resulted in a roadside tree stock of richer species diversity and higher percentage of exotic composition than those of Guangzhou. With a different urban history and resulting city morphology , the aver-age density of roadside trees in Hong Kong is less than that in Guangzhou. Comparing with Guangzhou, Hong Kong’ s roadside trees are dominated by species with small final-dimen-sions. The confined and high-density habitats in Hong Kong have limited more significantly the formation and growth of its roadside trees than those in Guangzhou.

盡管香港與廣州的地理位置、人口規模和自然條件十分相似,但兩者的市區行道樹群落在規模、密度、種類構成和林相外觀等方面均存在著顯著差異。香港行道樹的種類多樣性和外來種構成均比廣州豐富,但密度小于廣州,且香港群落中樹形較小的個體比重高于廣州,顯示其調節環境的功能較遜,文中還討論了兩地人文、自然方面的因素差異對城市行道樹的構成栽培和生長所產生的影響。