22 HOURS WITH NATURE. 



anthuria, orchids, and hundreds of other kinds of plants 

 from all r^ions of the tropics were displayed in 

 luxuriant profusion, and well ordered confusion. 

 Here for the first time we saw the wonderful pitcher 

 plants of which we had read in books of travel, and 

 which are said to attain their greatest development in 

 the mountains of Borneo, Malacca, and Sumatra. There 

 were two species of them exhibited : Nepenthes 

 Rafflesiana, and Nepenthes ampullacea, from Malacca 

 arid Singapore. The plants were not large, nor the 

 leaves and pitchers numerous, but, such as they were, 

 gave us a good id ea of what a pitcher plant is like.* 



Numerous varieties of rare and beautiful ferns from 

 different parts of the world throve in abundant profusion, 

 We counted not less than sixty four species from such 

 distant regions as Tropical America, Cuba, New Zealand, 

 Australia, the South Sea Islands, the Malay Peninsula, 

 the Philippine Islands, China, Mauritius, Bourbon, and 

 various parts of India including Assam and the Himalayas, 

 But the splendour of the display of orchids surpassed 

 anything that we ever saw or imagined. Graceful 

 clusters of Dendrobium from tropical Australia, the 

 Philippines, the Malay Peninsula, and all parts of India 

 hung on every side amidst a profusion of numerous 

 other kinds ; the delicate yellow colour of certain kinds 



* The Pitcher plants belong to the order Nepenthaciae of Botanists. The 

 plants are generally herbaceous with alternate leaves having pitcher-like 

 pouches hanging from them The apex of the le'af is prolonged into a tendril- 

 like process, which afterwards expands and folds itself open to form the 

 pitcher. Every pitcher is provided with a lid. Colour green, variously tinted 

 and mottled. 



