IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap, vm 



they can grow and develop. The same may be said, no doubt, of 

 plants which multiply by spores ; and thus on the top of Santubong 

 I collected two beautiful large ferns — Matonia pectinata and Poly- 

 podium dipteris, which may be said to be inseparable, and, indeed, 

 are found also associated on other mountains far from Borneo, 

 e.g., on Mt. Ophir in the Malay Peninsula. 



Amongst the many other interesting plants which I met with on 

 the top of Santubong, I shall only mention two new species of Didy- 

 mocarpus, 1 two Rhododendron, and the striking Nepenthes Veitchii 

 (Fig. 22), which grows as an epiphyte on the larger branches of 

 the trees among the mosses and detritus of all kinds which easily 

 accumulate in such situations. This is one of the finest and rarest 

 of pitcher-plants ; the pitchers or ascidia it produces are bag-shaped, 

 rather wide, and blotched with blood-red patches. Some of the 

 specimens I got measured quite ten inches in length. The mouth 

 of the pitcher in this species is certainly its most conspicuous and 

 remarkable part by reason of its rich orange colour and its vertical 

 position. It is also a perfect trap to entice insects into its interior, 

 attracting them from a distance by its bright colours. Sir Joseph 

 Hooker compares the mouth of the pitchers of N. 'Veitchii to the 

 gills of a fish, to which, indeed, with their narrow lameilse converging 

 to the centre, they bear considerable resemblance. 



In all the species of Nepenthes I have observed, the young 

 pitchers, even before their lid opens, contain a certain quantity 

 of liquid, produced by the plant itself ; but the water which is 

 found in full-grown pitchers is evidently due in great measure to 

 the rain. In the pitchers of N. Veitchii from the summit of 

 Santubong, in addition to the usual drowned insects, most of them 

 more or less putrid, I once found quite a mass of frog-spawn. It 

 would be extremely interesting to know whether some casual frog, 

 having by chance discovered this receptacle full of water, deposited 

 her eggs in it, or whether some particular species may not perhaps 

 exist which makes a practice of so doing. 



On July 23rd I visited the neighbouring island of Satang. 



1 These two species of Didymocarpus are small herbaceous plants, 

 mere rosettes of small leaves, from the midst of which thin stalks shoot up. 

 supporting lovely violet flowers. One, D. rufescens (C. B. Clarke), is one of 

 the very few Bornean plants with leaves thickly coated on both sides with 

 an abundant growth of silvery hairs ; though leaves of this type are frequent 

 in plants that grow in arid and dry places, especially on rocks on the sea- 

 shore and in Alpine regions. The other, D. bullata (C. B. Clarke), is also a 

 singular and elegant little plant, with leaves of a dark purplish green, velvety 

 on the upper side and with fairly regular transverse folds. These two Didy- 

 mocarpus, which I have not met with elsewhere, have the type of numerous 

 Gesneracese peculiar to China, and their presence on Santubong is perhaps 

 explained by the open-air position they have been able to secure amongst 

 the fissures in the rocks where no arboreal vegetation could get a footing. 



96 



