V 
THE ISLAND OF JAVA. , 189 
Among the plants which ^vere considered to be rare and 
curious we saw, in one of the gentlemen's gardens, tliQ 
Elastic Gum tree, the Convolvulus Jalappa, the Stifrax 
Liquida, the Bread Fruit, and the Areca Oleracea or moun- 
tain cabbage tree of the West Indies. But the most extra- 
ordinary plant that occurred, and which is said to be very 
common in most of the Eastern islands, was the Nepenthes 
Distillatojia or pitcher plant. There is not, perhaps, amono- 
the numerous examples that occur of the provident economy 
of nature, in the vegetable part of the creation, a more re- 
markable instance of contrivance adapted to circumstances, 
of means suited to the end, than Avhat is evidently displayed 
in this Avonderful plant. Being the inhabitant of a tropical 
climate, and found on the most stoney and arid situations, 
nature has furnished it with the means of an ample supply of 
moisture, without which it would have withered and perished. 
To the footstalk of each leaf, and near the base, is attached 
a small bag, shaped like a pitcher, of the same consistence 
and colour of the leaf in the early stage of its growth, but 
changing with age to a reddish purple ; it is girt round with 
an oblique band or hoop, and covered Avith a lid neatly 
fitted, and moveable on a kind of hinge or strong fibre which, 
passing over the handle, connects the vessel with the leaf. 
By the contraction of this fibre the lid is drawn open when- 
ever the weather is showery, or dews fall, v/hich would ap- 
pear to be just the contrary of what usually happens in na- 
ture, though the contraction probably is occasioned by the 
hot and dry atmosphere, and the expansion of the fibre does 
not take place till the moisture has fallen and saturated the 
pitcher. When this is the case the cover falls down, and it 
V 
