AROIDS, STOVE PLANTS AND NEPENTHES 139 
vigour of the plant is thus concentrated on the pitchers that remain, 
for it is in these that the beauty and interest of the plants are centred, 
the flowers being unattractive. These pitchers are really a wonderful 
development of the elongated midrib of the leaf. Their purpose 
is to collect water, possibly as a reservoir to draw on in times of 
scarcity, but also to drown insects and supply the plant with nitro- 
genous material drawn from their decaying bodies. Small animals, 
attracted, no doubt, by the water, have been found entrapped in 
these pitchers. Under cultivation it is necessary that the pitchers 
should be partially filled with water in order to keep them fresh 
and in colour, but the supply of nitrogen to the plant is effected by 
the prosaic method of giving manure-water to the roots. 
Besides its interest as the home of a remarkable group of tropical 
plants, this house affords a very instructive example of an unusual 
^ g ^ j method of cultivating stove-plants. As the Nepenthes 
Mode of are sus P en( ^ e( ^ bi baskets from the roof, the whole 
Culture floor house not occupied by the path is free for 
the accommodation of other plants. Advantage was taken 
of this opportunity to adopt a freer and more natural style of garden- 
ing than is usual in hothouses. A kind of rockwork was built against 
the side walls, and on it was planted a choice selection of stove-plants 
with beautiful foliage. Here they thrive in a remarkable way, develop- 
ing a beauty superior to that of the best pot-grown specimens. Along 
the roof are trained climbers with beautiful foliage or flowers. Seen 
at its best, when the Nepenthes are bearing their full crop of pitchers, 
and the other plants are in the full tide of growth — which is from 
June to September — this house is one of the most noteworthy features 
of Kew. The eternal red pot, the stiff, ugly staging, and many other 
accessories of the ordinary hothouse, are absent. It approaches as 
near the ideal of the more refined tropical gardening as is possible 
where such things as brick walls, glass roofs, and hot-water pipes are 
inevitable factors. The Palm House, of course, represents a grander 
phase of tropical gardening under glass, but the cultivation of dwarf, 
highly-coloured plants such as are grown with the Nepenthes is quite 
impossible in a house of that height and size. 
