PITCHER PLANTS are of the natural order Nepentlia,cem, and there are several species in Ceylon, the Khassya, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and Borneo. N. rajah, N. Lowii, N. Edwardsiana, are all Borneon species. Other known species are N. ampullacea, dis tillatoria, Icevis, phyllamphora, and Rafilesiana. They are quite common near Mount Ophir in Malacca, and the pitchers there contain about half a pint, and are beautifully ciliated with large cili ; the broad pitcher—for this, like the Rafilesiana, produces two kinds—is generally crimson ; the long pitcher differs from the other in its trumpet shape and green colour, which is spotted with crimson. The leaves are moderately large end broad,—at least those of them which produce the broad pitcher, and which are found near the base of the plant,—are dark green above, and of a fine peach-coloured red beneath. The Nepenthes ampullacea produces green or spotted short and broad pitchers ; it is also a climbing plant, and found in thick jungles. The old stems falling from the trees become covered in a short time with leaves and vegetable matter, which form a coating of earth about them ; they then throw out shoots, which become in time new plaits; but apparently the first attempts to form the leaf arc futile, and become only pitchers, which, as the petioles are closely imbricated, form a dense mass, and frequently cover the ground as with a carpet of these curious formations. As it con tinues growing and endeavouring to become a plant, the of the leaves gradually appear, small at first, but every new one increasing in size, until finally the blades of the leaves are perfect, and the pitchers, which, as the leaves developed themselves, have become gradually smaller on each new leaf, finally disappear altogether when the plant climbs into the trees. This formation
of the pitcher may afford an instructive lesson to the naturalist, as, though not to the same extent, the principle is perceptible in all of this curious tribe, the leaves of seedlings and weak plants always producing the largest pitchers. The best known to Europeans is Nepenthes distillatoria, Ait., of the Khassya mountains ; it is the N. phyllamphora and N. Indica, Lam. None of the plants of Borneo so much attract curiosity as the various and beautiful pitcher plants, eight dif ferent species of which were discovered in the western part of the island. The pitchers, which in some instances would contain upwards of a pint of water, hang from the midrib of the leaf of which they are a formation ; they precisely resemble pitchers, being furnished also with a lid. The Nepenthes Raftlesiana produces its pitchers singly ; they are large and generally crimson ; it grows on rocky islands in the neighbourhood of Singapore, and it is easily distinguished from its near ally, the native of Borneo and Mount Ophir, by its inferior size, Shortness of the column which supports the lid, the white and powdered appear ance of its stems, and its bushy habit, never exceeding four or five feet in height. The largest Borneon one, Nepenthes Hookeriana, grows in shaded jungles, climbing to the tops of the trees. The pitcher' is nine inches in length, having a large lid standing on a column, which is a con tinuation of the beautiful edge of the pitcher ; that part which is broadest and turned towards the midrib of the leaf from which it depends, is furnished with two broad wings.— TVallace, i. p. 31 ; Low's Sarawak, p. 68.