NEPENTHES. 



229 



into European gardens. This was brought about by Curtis, who 

 sent it to our Chelsea nursery while on a collecting mission for 

 us in Madagascar in 1878-79. It is really a handsome species, 

 for although the pitchers are only of medium size, they are of 

 very elegant shape and richly coloured. The other seventeenth- 

 century authors quoted by Dr. Giinther Beck are Bartholini 

 (1673), who mentions a miranda herba he had either seen or 

 heard of during his travels in the East ; Grimm (1682), who 

 describes a planta mirabilis distillatoria, that is Nepenthes dis- 

 tillatoria, a native of Ceylon, andPlukenet (1696), who mentions 

 the same species under the name of utricularia vegetabilis 

 Zeylancnsium. 



In the eighteenth century the Nepenthes were brought within 

 the domain of science by Linnaeus, at a very early period of his 

 distinguished career. The only species known to him was 

 distillatoria, of which he gives a minute and accurate description 

 in his " Hortus Cliftortianus," and to him, of course, we owe the 

 selection of the name Nepenthes for the designation of the genus. 

 The selection is a remarkable one ; the word is of Greek origin, 

 and occurs in Homer's Odyssey, Book IV., line 221, where it 

 means a freeing from or causing an oblivion of grief. The 

 passage has been thus translated : — " She (Helen) threw a drug 

 into the wine, from which they drank that which frees men 

 from grief, and from anger, and causes an oblivion of all ills." 

 Linnaeus gives a perfectly satisfactory reason for the selection of 

 this singular word for a plant name. Alluding to the pitcher, 

 he writes : — " If this is not Helen's Nepenthes, it certainly will 

 be for all botanists. What botanist would not be filled with 

 admiration if, after a long journey, he should find this wonderful 

 plant. In his astonishment past ills would be forgotten when 

 beholding this admirable work of the Creator." Curiously enough, 

 Mr. Burbidge, who at the time was on a mission for us in Borneo, 

 seems to have realised Linnaeus' sentiment on making the ascent 

 of Kina Balu, in company with Mr. P. C. M. Veitch in 1877, 

 when they first came upon the magnificent species which grow 

 on that mountain, for he tells us * " All thoughts of fatigue and 

 discomfort vanished as we gazed on these living wonders of the 

 Bornean Andes. To see these plants in all their health and vigour 

 was a sensation I shall never forget." 



* "Gardens of the Sun," p. 100. 



