222 J^otices of new and beautiful Plants 



for their beauty alone, and not their intrinsic worth, to introduce 

 all the tropseolums not yet in our gardens, and to give some at- 

 tention to their growth? T. peregrinum, we believe, is in but 

 one or two collections. A plant of T. pentaphyllum, (Chy mo- 

 carpus Don pentaphyllus,) of which some information will be 

 found in our I. p. 345, was growing in the garden of the INIessrs. 

 Sumner, in 1835, but we suspect it is now lost. Both this and 

 the T. brachyceras and tricolorum we should be pleased to see 

 in every amateur collection. It is a native of bushy places, on 

 the hills near Valparaiso. [Bot. Reg.^ Feb.) 



T. majus var. atrosanguinium is now blooming in several gar- 

 dens; it is very pretty for pot culture, and, trained to a wire trel- 

 lis, presents a handsome appearance, with its numerous blood- 

 colored flowers, 

 J^epenthdcecB. 



JVEPE'NTHES 

 distillatoria Pitcher Plant. A shrubby stove plant; growing twenty feet high; flowers 

 apetalous ; appearini; all the year; propagated by offsetts ; grown in peat and moss ; a 

 native of Egypt. Pax. Mag. Bot. 



This most remarkable plant, the peculiar structure of whose 

 leaves has so long attracted the notice of learned physiologists 

 and botanists, and whose cultivation has puzzled the efforts of 

 scientific gardeners, in their endeavors to grow it successfully, is 

 figured by Mr. Paxton from a specimen which was produced in 

 the collection at Chatsworth, under his care, where a single 

 plant had upon it the past winter, at one time, upwards of fifty 

 full grown pitchers. It is to these singular appendages to the 

 leaves that the plant owes its value to the florist, as well as bo- 

 tanist, and not to the flowers, which are produced in a dense 

 spike, apetalous, (without any petals,) disagreeable in their odor, 

 and altogether destitute of any elegance. 



The singular formation of the leaves of Sarracenia purpurea, 

 a plant indigenous to our meadows, has probably often been no- 

 ticed by most of our readers; but their structure, though unac- 

 counted for, is in no way to be compared to the much stranger 

 formation of the pitchers of the ^Yepenthes distillatoria; these 

 are produced on the extremities of the leaves, which are entire, 

 and nearly two feet in length; the mid-rib is lengthened into a 

 tortuous pendulous tendril, bearing these on their extremities, 

 which are erect, of a dingy color, and surmounted by a lid, re- 

 maining closed when small, but opening at about a right angle 

 when they are grown to their full size; Mr. Paxton measured 

 some of these, and found their dimensions to be as follows: 

 "length of the fullest grown pitchers, from the base to the rim 

 of the mouth, six to nine inches; circumference at the broadest 

 part, five inches." The pitchers, both opened and unopened, 

 invariably contain a larger or less quantity of pure sweet water, 

 and in the opened ones are often found insects: from this cir- 



