FLORA 



AND SYLVA. 



Vol. II. No. 12.] 



MARCH, 1 904. 



[Monthly. 



THE PITCHER PLANTS 



[Nepenthes). 

 From the time when the first of these 

 graceful and singular plants became 

 known to travellers in the East they have 

 excited interest: their structure and life- 

 history being so different from that of 

 other plants. Their very name, alluding 

 to the mystic draught supposed by the 

 ancients to bring forgetfulness of ill, has 

 reference not so much to any medicinal 

 value of the plants as to their strange 

 beauty, causing the traveller to forget 

 for awhile his privations. 



There are forty or more known spe- 

 cies of Nepenthes, which are, with but 

 one or two exceptions, 

 Range. confined to the tropics, 

 manykinds being strict- 

 ly local . The greatest number are from 

 Borneo and the adjacent islands, though 

 a dozen or more are found in the Malay 

 States and a small group in Northern 

 Australia. Scattered species come from 

 New Caledonia and the Philippine Is- 

 lands in the east; oneeachfrom Ceylon, 

 the Seychelles, and Madagascar ; and 

 one is found upon the hills of north- 

 east India, the only kind found upon the 

 mainland. There is common to the 

 greater part of this area a uniform cli- 



mate, varying little from day to day and 

 from one season to another, and an at- 

 mosphere constantly saturated with va- 

 pour at a high temperature. These con- 

 ditions are at the same time so varied by 

 local conditions, such as elevation and 

 aspect, that it is difficult to fix any rule 

 as to the needs of the plants, while the 

 conditions under which some kinds 

 thrive are so peculiar as to make their 

 cultivation difficult or impossible. Most 

 of them are found little above sea-level, 

 but in the mountains of Borneo some 

 are found at a height of many thousand 

 feet, and it is these kinds which are the 

 most difficult to obtain and to grow. 



Some of the species grow mainly 

 upon trees, their long stems clinging 



