372 Dr Graliani's List of Rare Plants. 



nent than the nerve on the back, and more or less completely flatten the 

 pitcher on its anterior surface, which is the heel of the wedge in its young 

 state. Lid at lirst closed, afterwards raised to about a right angle with 

 the oblique opening of the pitcher, and is never again closed. Before the 

 opening of the lid, rather more than a drachm of Umpid fluid was formed 

 within each of the largest pitchers on our specimen. This had a sub- 

 acid taste, which increased after the rising of the lid, when the fluid 

 slowly evaporated. My friend Dr Turner perceived it to emit, while 

 boiling, an odour like baked apples, from containing a trace of vegetable 

 matter, and he found it to yield minute crystals of superoxalate of pot- 

 ash, on being slowly evaporated to dryness. The pitcher whose contents 

 Dr Turner analysed was a large one, it had not opened, and the whole 

 fluid weighed only 66 grains. The upper part of the pitcher decays first ; 

 and the Bne at which this is observed, is often quite defined. Our largest 

 pitchers measure 63 inches from the highest part of the oblique mouth to 

 the lowest part of the curvature at their base; the greatest circumference 

 4 1 inches. Flowers dioecious. Perfume offensive, resembling in kind, 

 though less in degree, that of the Lilium pomponium. Raceme solitary, 

 opposite to a leaf near the extremity of the branch ; its extremity nod- 

 ding, till the flowers expand in succession, when it is elongated, and be- 

 comes erect. Peduncle round, about 2^ feet long, of which about 1 1 

 inches at the base is without flowers ; pedicels round, ^-f inch long, clus- 

 tered irregularly, and frequently bifid supporting two flowers, having a 

 small subulate bractea on the lower side near the base, and sometimes 

 the appearance of an abortive one opposite and nearer the flower. Calyx 

 4-parted, spreading or slightly divaricated ; segments blunt, coriaceous, 

 concave, and containing honey, green within when first opened, after- 

 wards red in the middle ; two opposite segments slightly overlap the two 

 others in the bud. Anthers numerous, collected into a capitulum on the 

 top of a hollow club-shaped pedicel, formed by the united filaments ; 

 pollen an abundant yellow powder. The middle rib of the leaf, the cir- 

 rhus, the whole outside of the pitcher when young, but its ribs chiefly 

 when old ; the peduncle, pedicels, every part of tlie calyx which is ex- 

 posed in the bud, and a narrow triangular space extending upwards from 

 the axil of the leaf to the bud, which it includes, are covered with a rusty 

 pubescence ; every other part of the plant is smooth. The whole is green 

 except the lower part of the stem, which is brown ; but the leaves, at 

 first darkest above, become yellow in fading, and there is a tendency in 

 them, and in almost every other part of the plant, to become red, parti- 

 cularly in the lid, and especially its under side, which uniformly acquires 

 a deep red somewhat mottled colour, though at first it is quite green. 

 This plant is certainly the same species as the female specimen figured 

 from the collection of Messrs Loddiges in Botanical Cabinet, t. lOl?-, 

 under the name of N. destillatwia^ and in Bot. Mag. t. 2629. under the 

 name of N. Phyllamphora. The seeds from which they sprung were, I 

 believe, introduced from Ceylon at the same time. What Linnaeus 

 meant by his N. destillatoria, does not certainly appear, for he refers to 

 the Cantharifera of Rumphius's Herbarium Amboinense, v. 5. t. ^. f. 2., 

 and to the Pandura Zeylanica of Burmann's Thesaurus Zey lanicus, 1. 1?*, 

 — figures of plants which differ altogether from each other, as the first, at 

 least, does from the subject of the present article. If any conclusion coidd 

 be drawn from the bad figures of Pluckenetius and Grimm, to which refe- 

 rence is also made by Linnaeus, I should believe that these also differed 

 from each other, and those quoted alongst with them, as they certainly 

 do from the present species. Our plant differs from the description of 

 Phyllamphora of Loureiro in the stem being branched, the leaves vein- 

 less, and scattered, the inflorescence a lateral raceme, in which the pe- 

 dicels are frequently bifid, supporting two flowers, and in the an- 

 thers being more numerous. In Loureiro's plant, the stem is de- 

 scribed as simple, the leaves lineato-veined and opposite, the inflo- 

 rescence a terminal, perfectly simple spike. Our plant, however, has 

 only produced two branches besides tlie leading shoot ; and this ten- 



