It is sometimes called the Hong Kong orchid (Chinese: 香港蘭; Cantonese Yale: Hēunggóng làahn).

In Hong Kong, it is most commonly referred to by its Chinese name of 洋紫荊 (yèuhng jígīng).

More scientific research will need to be carried out, e.g., artificial controlled cross-pollination experiments to confirm the ability of Bauhinia × blakeana in backcross or outcross to produce (fertile) seeds.

Lawrence Ramsden of the University of Hong Kong's Department of Botany is conducting the search to find out if there are any more individuals that can produce seeds – if so, they could benefit propagation of the tree for horticulture.

[7] This tree was discovered in around 1880 by a French Catholic Missionary of the Paris Foreign Missions (MEP), near the ruins of a house above the shore-line of western Hong Kong island near Pok Fu Lam and propagated to the formal botanical gardens in Victoria/Central.

[4] The first thorough scientific description of the tree was made by Stephen Troyte Dunn, Superintendent of the Botanical and Forestry Department, who assigned it to the genus Bauhinia in his paper of 1908.

Sir Henry and Lady Blake were thus thanked for their promotion of the Hong Kong Botanic Gardens.

Dr Lawrence Ramsden of the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Botany estimates that this clonal origin would mean that B.

Since 1997 the flower appears on Hong Kong's coat of arms, its flag and its coins; its Chinese name has also been frequently shortened as 紫荊/紫荆 (洋 yáng means 'foreign' in Chinese, and this would be deemed inappropriate by the PRC government[citation needed]), although 紫荊/紫荆 refers to another genus called Cercis.

Although the flowers are bright pinkish purple in colour, they are depicted in white on the Flag of Hong Kong.