HORTUS VE1TCHII 



During the following ten years some of the finest were introduced by the 

 Veitchian collectors, including, * Nepenthes Rajah and N. bicalcarata from Borneo 

 through Burbidge ; N. hirsuta from the same region through another agency ; 

 N. madagascariensis from Madagascar through Curtis ; N. Kennedyana from North 

 Australia, and N. Viellardii, a native of New Caledonia, through the Botanic 

 Gardens at Sydney ; and N. Northiana from Borneo, also through Curtis. With 

 a view of obtaining some of those remarkable plants made known through the 

 discoveries of Mr. Low in Borneo, Thomas Lobb, acting under the direction of Mr. 

 James Veitch junior, reached the foot of Kina Balu in 1856, but was prevented 

 from ascending the mountain by the hostility and extortion of the natives. He 

 was followed in 1877 by Burbidge and P. C. M. Veitch, who met with a like 

 failure, and again by the first-named, eight months later, on which occasion 

 some seed of N. Rajah was obtained, despatched to Chelsea, and plants raised, 

 but few lived. N. Rajah has the largest pitchers of any known species, and these 

 are described in Mr. Spencer St. John's book " Life in the Forests of the Far 

 East " : " This morning, while the men were cooking their rice, as we sat 

 before the tent enjoying our chocolate, observing one of our followers carry- 

 ing water in a splendid specimen of Nepenthes Rajah, we desired him to bring 

 it to us, and found that it held exactly four pint bottles. It was 19 in. in 

 circumference. We afterwards saw others which were much larger, and Mr. Low, 

 while wandering about in search of flowers, came upon one in which was a 

 drowned rat." t N. albo-marginata one of the earliest introduced species, 

 previously unknown to science, was one of Thomas Lobb's Bornean discoveries, 

 sent home to Exeter in 1848. The species is difficult to cultivate, but repays 

 trouble by the great beauty of the pitcher, light green at the base, rosy red 

 at the apex, with a pale band edging the top below the peristome. 



Nepenthes zeylanica, or, as it is sometimes called, N. hirsuta glabrescens, and 

 N. zeylanica rubra, a red form of the type, were the next introductions, followed 

 shortly afterwards by the handsome, and still rare, J N. Veitchii. Much 

 confusion has arisen regarding the nomenclature of this species, sometimes 

 called N. lanata and also N. villosa, both in themselves good species. 



Nepenthes Veitchii was first met with by Hugh Low Esq. junior, on Mount 

 Kina Balu, Borneo, but not introduced. Later found by the collector Thomas 

 Lobb in Sarawak, living plants sent to Exeter proved one of the most remark- 

 able of all Nepenthes : large pitchers covered with hair, a remarkable peristome 

 or frill round the mouth, resembling both in structure and appearance the gills 

 of a fish ; the frill cream-coloured, slightly reddish ; the habit as in other of the 

 family. 



In 1879 Nepenthes Veitchii was followed by N. Kennedyana, a species from 

 Cape York, North Australia, sent from the Botanical Gardens, Sydney ; the 

 pitchers are over 5 in. in length by 1 in. in width, reddish in colour, elongate- 

 cylindrical in shape, slightly dilated below the middle and tapering at the base 

 with two sharply fringed wings. 



* N. Rajah, Masters in Gard. Chron. 1881, vol. xvi. p. 493, fig. 



t N. albo-marginata, Lobb ex Lindl. in Gard. Chron. 1849, p. 580, fig. The Garden, 

 1880, col. pi. p. 542. 



J N. Veitchvi, The Garden, 1880, vol. xvii. p. 542, col. pi. ; Bot. Mag. t. 5080 as villosa. 

 Gard. Chron. 1881, p. 781, fig. 152. 



N. Kennedyana, Gard. Chron. 1882, vol. xvii. p. 257, fig. 36. 



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