LETTER XLVI. 



PITCHER-PLANTS VEGETABLE ANATOMY. 



Plates XLVI I c^- XLVIII. 



I MUST not dismiss the Birthwort Tribe without 

 adverting to those curious vegetables called Pitcher- 

 plants, in the East Indies, and to the Monkey-cups 

 they bear. The production of hollow bags instead of 

 leaves, is not a very uncommon occurrence in plants ; 

 in Dioncea a preparation is made for their formation 

 by the dilatation of the leaf-stalk ; in Side-saddle 

 flowers (Sarracenias), the edges of the petiole are 

 rolled up and united into a cup, over which the end 

 of the leaf curves, as if to cover it ; in some plants 

 the bracts are chanoed into baa's which hang- down 

 amongst the flowers ; and in an East Indian plant 

 called Dischidia Rafflesiana, which climbs to the top 

 of the highest trees in the forests of Penang, the upper 

 branches are loaded with clusters of tough, fleshy, 

 leathery bottles, filled with water, into which roots, 

 protruded from the branches, dip their points to 

 drink. 



Not only is Sarracenia found in our gardens now 

 and then, and Cephalotus, a New Holland plant, whose 

 singular pitchers are beautifully fringed and veined ; 

 but Nepenthes itself, the true Pitcher-plant of the 



