[Plate 9. 



THE RED NEPENTHES. 



(nepenthes sanguinea.) 

 An Evergreen Plant, from Malacca, belonging to the Natural Order of Nepenthacf^e. 



Specific Character. 



NEPENTHES SANGUINEA. — Stem triangular, glabrous. Leaves sub-sessile, cordate, stem-clasping, obovate-oblong. 

 Pitchers twelve inches long, two to two and a half inches wide, downy, dark crimson, cylindrical (younger ones 

 winged, dilated at the base), margin broad, prolonged at the back into a broad lamina. Lid oblong or orbicular, 

 densely sprinkled with glands on the inner surface, provided with a spur dike process at the base on the outer 

 surface. 



Gardener's Chronicle, 1872, p. 542. 



THIS magnificent species is undoubtedly one of the finest of the whole family of cultivated 

 Pitcher-plants, not alone on account of the large size of its individual pitchers, but 

 equally as much so for the splendid colour these attain when well managed. Moreover, the 

 general habit of the plant is such as cannot fail to commend it to the many who now grow 

 these most singular of Nature's vegetable forms. It belongs to one of the most prominent 

 sections in the group of Insectivorous plants, to which of late years more than ordinary 

 interest has been drawn through the discussions that have taken place as to the part these 

 vegetable insect-traps play ; some contending that the fact of the insects being allured to 

 their destruction within the jug-like leaf appendages of these and the nearly allied Sarra- 

 cenias was merely owing to an accident of the existence within these receptacles of a sweet 

 liquid, which attracted the insects by its offering to them dainty food ; others maintaining 

 that the presence of the insects in course of decomposition was an element of food essential to 

 the sustenance and well-being of the plants ; others, again, looking upon these and all 

 other plants which have anything about them calculated to allure insects to destruction as 

 simply one of Nature's means of keeping this portion of the animal creation within bounds. 

 From a lengthened acquaintance by cultivating most of the plants, native as well as exotic, 

 of this character, and a close observation of a good many experiments carried out with a view 

 to give evidence bearing upon the subject, we think there is not much room for doubt that 

 plants so constructed as to entice, destroy, and retain the dead bodies of insects are in reality 

 animal feeders. The subject is highly interesting, but space will not admit of our entering 



