Pitcher-Plants and Ferns. 91 



smoke passes to a long slender bamboo tube. There are 

 many other small matters for which bamboo is daily used, 

 but enough has now been mentioned to show its value. In 

 other parts of the Archipelago I have myself seen it applied 

 to many new uses, and it is probable that my limited means 

 of observation did not make me acquainted with one-half the 

 ways in which it is serviceable to the Dyaks of Sarawak. 



While upon the subject of plants, I may here mention a 

 few of the more striking vegetable productions of Borneo. 

 The wonderful pitcher-plants, forming the genus Nepenthes 

 of botanists, hei'e reach their greatest development. Every 

 mountain-top abounds with them, running along the ground, 

 or climbing over shrubs and stunted trees, their elegant pitch- 

 ers hanging Ih every direction. Some of these are long and 

 slender, resembling in form the beautiful Philippine lace- 

 sponge (Euplectella), which has now become so common ; 

 others are broad and short. Their colors are green, various- 

 ly tinted and mottled with red or purple. The finest yet 

 known were obtained on the summit of Kini-balou, in North- 

 west Borneo. One of the broad sort (Nepenthes rajah) will 

 hold two quarts of water in its pitcher. Another (Nepenthes 

 Edwardsiania) has a narrow pitcher twenty inches long, 

 while the plant itself grows to the length of twenty feet. 



Ferns are abundant, but are not so varied as on the vol- 

 canic mountains of Java, and tree-ferns are neither so plenti- 

 fiil nor so large as on that island. They grow, however, quite 

 down to the level of the sea, and are genei-ally slender and 

 graceful plants from eight to fifteen feet high. Without de- 

 voting much time to the search, I collected fifty species of 

 ferns in Borneo, and I have no doubt a good botanist would 

 have obtained twice the numbei-. The interesting group of 

 orchids is very abundant, but, as is generally the case, nine- 

 tenths of the species have small and inconspicuous flowers. 

 Among the exceptions are the fine Coelogynes, whose large 

 clusters of yellow flowers ornament the gloomiest forests, and 

 that most extraordinary plant (Vanda Lowii), which last is 

 particularly abundant near some hot springs at the foot of 

 the Peninjauh Mountain. It grows on the lower branches of 

 trees, and its strange pendent flower-spikes often hang down 

 so as almost to reach the ground. These are generally six 



