NEPENTHES, in botany, a genus of the Dioecia Syngenesia class and order. Essential character : calyx four-parted; corolla none : male, filament one, with many anthers, connected into a peltate head : female, style none ; stigma large ; peltate four-lobed; capsule four•celled, with many stilled seeds. There is but one species, viz. N. distillatoria, a native of the island of Ceylon.
The nepenthes ma justly be classed among the most sin ar productions of the vegetable wort . The plant has al ways excited the admiration of those who have examined its structure, with a view to the contrivance which is so strikingly exhibited in the formation of its leaves. The nepenthes is a native of India ; it is an herbaceous plant, with thick roots and a simple stem, crowned with flowers disposed in bunches. The leaves are al ternate, partly embracing the stem at their base, and terminated by tendrils, each of which supports a deep, membra nous urn, of an oblong shape, and clos ed by a little valve like the Iid of a box.
This appendage to the leaf appears to be as designed and studied a piece of me chanism as any thing we can meet fah in nature's more complicated productions.
The leaf; as we have already said, is ter minated by a deep oblong urn; this, in general, is filled with a sweet limpid wa ter. In the morning the lid is closed, but • it opens during the heat of the day, and a portion of the water evaporates; this is replenished in the night, and each morn ing the vessel is full, and the lid shut. The plant grows in a climate where the parched traveller is frequently in want of refreshment, and gladly avails himself of the water which. this vegetable affords, each urn containing about the measure of half a wine glass. The use of this plant is too evident to need any comment. It is one of the many instances in nature of the bounty of Providence, who has filled the urns of the nepenthes with a treasure, of all others the most refreshing to the in habitants of hot climates.