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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tinues to grow the lamina of the leaves begins to be developed and it 

 increases in size in successive leaves until the blade is perfect ; 

 as the blade increases the pitcher decreases in size with every 

 new leaf and finally disappears altogether when the stem has 

 climbed into the trees.* 



Inflorescence. — Flower spikes are produced when the stem 

 has attained a Considerable length, rarely otherwise. The 

 inflorescence is pseudo-terminal, that is to say, the flower stalk 

 is produced apparently from the end of the* stem, but not really 

 so, for the stem continues to grow simultaneously with the flower 

 stalk but at a much slower rate, so that by the time the flowers 

 are expanded the base of the peduncle is seen to be inserted 

 opposite a leaf. The flower stalk sometimes attains a length of 

 two feet and bears upwards of a hundred flowers ; it is always 

 racemed so far as our experience goes, but in the wild state it is 

 said to be often branched (panicled). The flowers are dioecious, 

 the pollen-bearing and the seed-bearing flowers being produced 

 on different plants ; the pedicels along the lower two-thirds of 

 the raceme bifurcate or divide into two branches each bearing a 

 single flower ; those along the apical third are mostly simple, 

 fig. 58, ii. The flowers are constructed on the tetramerous type, 

 which means that all the parts or organs of the flower are in 

 fours or in some simple multiple of four. Although this type of 

 structure is the only one yet seen in cultivated plants, it is not 

 absolute throughout the genus, an exception occurring in 

 Pervellei which has not yet flowered in our houses but which is 

 said to have but three perianth segments and ovaries with three 

 chambers in the place of four. 



The staminate or male inflorescence here shown is that of 

 Curtisii (fig. 58, 5). Each flower has a perianth of four green seg- 

 ments, shown somewhat sharply deflexed in fig. 58, 6, w 7 hich was 

 drawn when the flowers were in an advanced state, but which are 

 spreading like those of the pistillate flowers when first expanded ; 

 the flower is rightly shown in fig. 58, 7, as seen from above. The 

 essential part of the flower is, of course, the androecium, which 

 consists of eight stamens whose filaments are united into a column, 

 whilst the anthers form a compact head on the summit (fig. 58, 

 6 and 7). The seminiferous or female inflorescence (fig. 58, 8) 

 is that of mixta, a hybrid betw r een Curtisii 6 and Northiana $ . 

 * " Sarawak and its Productions," p. 55. 



