Pop-gun Seeds and Crackling Bamboo Gun

On the island, there is Pop-gun Seeds, a Hong Kong native evergreen tree species. It has another common name called 'Pikpoktai'. Why? It's because children living in the countryside in the past used its fruits to make the ‘bullets’ of the ‘crackling bamboo gun’. The villager who joined the ecological surveyor immediately brought up her childhood memories of playing with the toy when she heard that the surveyor found 'Pikpoktai'! So, how to play the toy? In the previous study, a villager shared:

'The principle of it was to use two bamboo sticks, one thicker and the other thinner (comparable to the thickness of the worms we would eat). We would thread the thinner stick through the hole on the thicker stick, and then add a bang snap bullet inside. With a push of the thinner stick, the bullet would pop out with a bang.’ (For detailed story: https://www.yttstorytelling.org/en/storymap#34)

In addition to being used for entertainment, the fruits of Pop-gun Seed are also delicious food for birds such as Red-whiskered Bulbul. Because of its long flowering period, it is also an important nectar plant for animals such as butterflies.