Chapter IV 

 NEPENTHES 



Geographical distribution. — Habitat. — General character. — Morphology of the leaf 

 and the seedUng. — Development of the leaf and adventive shoots. — The pitcher (Mor- 

 phology; Variety of form, color etc.; The mouth; The lid; Spur; Special anatomy). — 

 The rim or peristome. — Histology of the peristome. — The glands: their histology. _ — 

 Anatomy of the pitcher-wall (Vascular system; The interior surface; Wax zone; Digestive 

 zone; Rim). — Digestion. — The animal life of the pitchers. — Folklore, uses. — Antisepsis 

 of pitcher fluid. 



The species of Nepenthes are found scattered throughout the tropics 

 of the Old World with the center of distribution in the region of 

 Borneo, being found as far East as N. Austraha and New Guinea, 

 and to the West in Ceylon and in Madagascar, its extreme outpost 

 (Danser). Madagascar, indeed, was the scene of its first discovery by 

 the Governor, Flacourt, in the middle of the 17th century, and it was 

 reported from Ceylon a little later by Paul Hermann, a physician, 

 who sent the specimens to Commelin in Amsterdam. (Wunschmann 



1872). 



They grow with rare exceptions only in moist or very moist situa- 

 tions, and they are successfully cultivated in greenhouses only if the 

 relative humidity is kept very high; in particular, a slightly reduced 

 humidity inhibits the development of pitchers. In their vertical dis- 

 tribution they occur from near sea-level to 9000 ft. altitude {Nepenthes 

 Rajah and villosa, on Kina Balu, Borneo). They are chiefly jungle 

 plants, though one species at least {N. destillatoria in Ceylon) grows 

 in wet savannahs where it climbs on scattered shrubs. A^. gracilis was 

 found by Korthals (1839) in "dry sandy, stony ground" though it 

 was found to prosper better in other, moister situations. The de- 

 mands of the plant are for wet soil and hot to cool temperatures ac- 

 companied by a high humidity of the air. 



It is most rarely that they can be successfully cultivated outdoors 

 in temperate regions but it was reported some years ago at a meeting 

 of the Naturalists Club of Sydney, N. S. W. that two unidentified 

 species were grown out of doors on a trellis, at Parramatta, not far 

 from Sydney. This is a region where staghom ferns are grown out of 

 doors by everybody, and the Nepenthes species above mentioned may 

 be especially hardy. 



In general appearance the species of this genus are pretty uniform, 

 the more striking differences being found in the size and shape of the 

 pitchers. The plant consists of a creeping rhizome from which spring 

 coarse, clambering vines with thick, glossy leaves of frequently con- 

 siderable length (i meter) arranged in a "^5 phyllotaxy, though one 

 species (A. Veitchii) is wholly distichous (Troll 1939). The leaf con- 

 sists of a spreading winged base narrowing into a short isthmus 

 beyond which it spreads into a hgulate to orbicular blade beyond which 

 extends a short or long tendril which can twine about a support and 

 ending in a pitcher with a lid overhanging the mouth, behind which 



