NEPENTHES. 



231 



Ten years after the publication of the " Hortus ClirTortianus," 

 Rumph's " Herbarium amboinense " appeared, in which the author 

 describes at great length a Nepenthes he had met with during 

 his voyage from Japan to Malacca. It is not quite certain 

 which species is intended, as the drawing accompanying the 

 description is poorly executed ; but it is probably the small 

 pitchered gracilis. We next come to Loureiro, the Portuguese 

 naturalist, who visited Cochin China in 1790. In his " Flora 

 cochinchinensis," published three years later under the editorship 

 of Willdenow, at Berlin, one more species is brought to light, 

 PJnjllamphora. Loureiro's notion of the plant must have been 

 founded on an imperfect observation, for he concludes his 

 description with the statement that " attached to the side of the 

 pitcher is a lid which of its own accord is opened or shut to 

 receive and absorb the dew." 



I have given a sketch of the history of Nepenthes up to the 

 end of the eighteenth century. It is but a disjointed sketch, for 

 the earlier literature of the genus, although not extensive, is 

 much scattered. Coming nearer our own times, the task is 

 somewhat easier, and the narrative more connected. 



Among the earliest additions to the genus in the present 

 century, were Bafflesiana and amptillaria discovered by Dr. 

 AYilliam Jack at Singapore, when the British settlement there 

 was founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. Rafflesiana, as 

 we learn from the Botanical Magazine (sub t. 4,285), was 

 first introduced to the Royal Gardens at Kew by Captain Bethune 

 in 1845. Two years later Hookeriana was sent from Borneo to 

 the Clapton nursery by Mr. (now Sir Hugh) Low, and shortly 

 afterwards our collector, Thomas Lobb, sent a whole group of 

 species to our nursery at Exeter, which included Bafflesiana, 

 ampullaria, albo-marginata, Veitchii, Phyllamphora, sanguinea 

 — this latter discovered by him on Mount Ophir — and an un- 

 named species that afterwards participated in the parentage of 

 the first hybrids raised. Although not the first Nepenthes culti- 

 vated in Great Britain, these species formed the nucleus of the 

 large collection subsequently brought together at Chelsea, 



According to Aiton,* distill atoria had been introduced to 

 Kew from Ceylon in 1789, but was soon lost. Loddiges reintro- 

 duced it, and figured it in his Botanical Cabinet for 182 G ; the 

 * " Hortus Kewensis," ed. II., 420 (1813). 



