i 
NEPENTHES DISTILLATORIA. 
(pitcher plant.) 
class. order. 
DICECIA. MONADELPHIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
NEPENTHEACEiE. 
Generic Character — Male, Calyx four-parted, spreading, inside coloured. Corolla none. Filamen.s 
columnar. Anthers from fifteen to seventeen, cohering at their base. Female, Calyx and Corolla 
same as the male. Stigma pelate. Capsule four-celled, many-seeded. J 
Specific Character. — A half shrubby caulescent stove plant, more than twenty feet high. Stem green, 
except at the bottom, where it is brown, round, and woody, the upper part thickest. Buds small, 
situated a little above the axil of the leaves. Leaves green, entire, undulated, smooth, scattered, 
nearly two feet in length, semi-amplexicaul, veins most conspicuous in the old leaves, running nearly 
parallel with the midrib, and reticulated. Midrib a rusty brown colour, very prominent behind, 
lengthening into a tortuous pendulous tendril of the same colour, bearing at the extremity an erect 
dingy brown pitcher, which is surmounted by a round rather darker lid connected at the back part of 
the mouth, as shown in the plate. This lid in the young pitcher is closed ; when old it remains open, 
at about a right angle with the mouth. Flowers dioecious, disagreeable to the smell, produced on a 
solitary rusty brown raceme, at first nodding, afterwards, as the flowers expand in succession, it 
becomes more erect. Flower-stalks same colour as the raceme, round, half an inch long, clustered, 
each supporting two flowers. Calyx a greenish red, four-parted, somewhat reflexed. Segments 
blunt, leathery, containing honey. Anthers many, collected into a head on the summit of a hollow 
club-shaped footstalk, formed by the united filaments. Pollen a yellow powder. 
Bot. Mag. 2798. 
This extraordinary plant, according- to the Hortus Kewensis, was introduced in 
the year 1789, but was shortly after wholly lost to the country, until Mr. Cooper of 
Wentworth, and the Messrs. Shepherds of Liverpool, succeeded in raising plants from 
seeds gathered on the Circar Mountains, to the north-east of Bengal, and sent them 
by the excellent Dr. Carey. 
The plant at Chatsworth, which without doubt is the finest grown specimen in 
Britain, being more than twenty feet high, and having on it at this time near fifty 
full grown pitchers, hanging gracefully from the points of the strongest leaves, 
presents a most magnificent and singular appearance ; it stands at one end of 
the stove on a slight elevation, above the level of the floor, and the house 
not being sufficiently lofty to admit of an uninterrupted erect growth, it became 
necessary, about twelve months ago, to train the leading shoot down under the bars 
of the lights, since which the growth has been so luxuriant as to cause part of the 
branch bent down to break out into several strong shoots, so that the upper part or 
VOL. IV. — NO. XXXVII. B 
