7fi NOTES ON NEW OR RARE PLANTS. 



is anxious tliat we should give publicity to our researches, in one way 

 or other, and has planned bringing out something at Bencoolen. He 

 proposes sending home these kitclien plants, that such splendid things 

 may appear under all the advantages of elegant execution, by way of 

 attracting attention to the subject of Sumatran botany.' Many of 

 Dr. Jack's plants did appear in the ' Malayan Miscellany,' published at 

 Bencoolen ; but no plants of the Nepenthea Rafflesiana ever reached 

 Europe alive, till the Royal Gardens were supplied with a case of them 

 through the kindness of Captain Bethune, R.N., who, on his return 

 from his scientific mission to Borneo, had a Wardian case filled with 

 them ; and so well were the plants established in the case, and so great 

 Avas the care taken of them overland from India, that tliey were as 

 healthy on their arrival at Kew in 1845, as the day they were trans- 

 ])lanted from their native glen in Singapore. It was the very year in 

 which Dr. Jack writes, that, as is well known, at the suggestion of his 

 friend and patron. Sir Stamford Raffles, the island of Singapore was 

 purchased by the India Company of the Sultan of Johore. Mr. Craw- 

 ford was its first governor and historian. Since that period it has 

 become a settlement of vast importance to our country ; and being much 

 frequented by our sliips, both mercantile and of the navy, it is to be 

 hoped its vegetable productions will soon be familiar to us. Dr. Jack, 

 witli tlie modesty which was a striking feature in his character, gives 

 tlie credit of the discovery of this plant in the forests of Singapore to 

 Sir Stamford Raffles ; probably in order that the name might be con- 

 sidered more appropriate. Singapore, however, does not appear to be 

 the only station for this plant. Korthals, if we read his High Dutch 

 correctly, gives Binteme, off the coast of Sumatra, as another habitat. 



" Our plants, on their arri\al, were soon removed into pots, ac- 

 cording to their sizes, and placed in a pan frequently filled with water, 

 having moist moss covering the earth. With this treatment a fine 

 spike of male floN^ers was thrown up in the autumn of the same year. 

 The spike is large and handsome, from the rich colour of tiie copious 

 perianths, and the numerous yellow heads. The pitchers, or ascidia, 

 are not only remarkable in their shape, and from their different form 

 in different parts of the plants, but for the richness of tiie colour and 

 spots, and the elongated mouth with the curiously striated margin: the 

 striie terminate internally in teeth, and give a beautifully pectinated 

 appearance to the inner edge. 



" Tlie icndrili of the upper leaves are twisted into one or two spires 

 at tlie middle, and terminate in long ascending funnel-shaped urns, 

 flattened anteriorly, but not winged, and gracefully turned at the mouth 

 like an antique vase or urn. Both have the inverted margin beauti- 

 fully and delicately striated and variegated with parallel stripes of 

 purple, ci'imson, and yellow. The opercula, or lids, are incumbent, 

 membranaceous, ovate, marked with two principal longitudinal nerves, 

 and cuspidate behind the hinge. The racemes of Jlowers are at first 

 terminal ; but the stem begins, after a time, to shoot beyond them, and 

 they become lateral, and are always opposite to a leaf, which differs 

 from tlie others in being sessile, and its cirrhus never bearing an urn at 

 its extremity." 



