202 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



All the time I was up this mountain (I was there on two occasions 

 in what below were the wet and dry seasons), I never had a dry- 

 thread to my back, except at night in the cave with a great bonfire 

 blazing outside. The native guides from the last village on the 

 road, Kiau (altitude 3,000 feet), found the wet and cold (forty- 

 nine to fifty-five degrees Fahr.) on this mountain too much for 

 them, and they became quite paralysed, and finally left for their 

 homes rather than endure the chilly dampness of this Pitcher 

 Plant paradise. At 9,000 to 10,000 feet altitude the trees are 

 low and scrubby, and covered with long moss, filmy ferns (here 

 I saw the trees draped with the rare Trichomanes pluma, only 

 seen alive previously by the veteran plant hunter, Tom Lobb), 

 and Lichens or Usnea ; and creeping, monkey fashion, amongst 

 this vegetation was only another name for a perpetual shower- 

 bath from the branches overhead." 



Growing in this comparatively cool temperature, where dew- 

 point or saturation is almost constant, these noble Nepenthes not 

 only prove to be exceedingly difficult of transplantation and 

 introduction to Europe, but even when, as in the case of N. 

 Eajah, they are introduced by seeds, they are extremely difficult 

 of cultivation. Plants brought down to the hot plains soon die 

 off, and even if shipped safely in Wardian cases, they cannot 

 withstand the heat of the sea voyage. 



In order to grow them successfully, Mr. Burbidge suggested a 

 cold greenhouse surrounded by hot plant-stoves, so arranged 

 that the warm moisture-laden air of the stoves could be 

 admitted to the cold house so as to not only warm it sufficiently, 

 but more especially to ensure a constant state of saturation and 

 condensation of moisture on the stems and foliage of these 

 Nepenthes, together with a state of comparative coolness such as 

 naturally exists where they grow. 



In suggesting such a special structure for these noble 

 mountain Pitcher Plants, I need scarcely say that it would also 

 be equally useful in ensuring the health and prosperity of many 

 orchids, ferns, and other plants which are naturally found 

 growing wild on the wet and misty mountains of the tropics 

 both east and west, but which defy cultivation in ordinary hot- 

 houses. 



