240 Bower,— On the Pitcher of Nepenthes : 
minor importance in the treatment of the shoot as a whole ; 
and we put on one side the branching of the leaf, though in 
treating of the shoot as a whole the time, place, and order of 
origin of leaves and buds upon the main axis are considered 
of primary importance, and indeed form the foundation of our 
morphology of the shoot at large. 
Now, the fact that intercalary growth frequently obscures 
the branching of the leaf, does not appear to me to be a 
sufficient reason for sacrificing consistency of method ; further- 
more, a comparative study of the leaves of vascular plants low 
in the scale appears in no way to justify this sacrifice of con- 
sistency. I therefore proposed in the paper above mentioned, 
that in the morphological treatment of the leaf, the main axis 
of the leaf exclusive of all its branches should first be recog- 
nised, and distinguished as the phyllopodinm , while the term 
pinna should be retained for the branches of the first order 
borne upon the phyllopodium. The relations of the parts of 
the shoot would thus be as follows : — 
Shoot. 
Axis. Leaf. 
Phyllopodium. Pinna. 
The practical difference between the two methods is this : — 
under the old method, placing the results of intercalary growth 
in the foremost place, we should, in attempting to solve a 
problem in foliar morphology, first ask, Where are the limits 
between sheath, petiole, and lamina? Under the method 
which I proposed, the first question would be, Does the leaf 
branch ? 
Finding that the method worked well in practice in ordinary 
cases, it was thought well to apply it to a familiar problema- 
tical case, viz. the pitcher of Nepenthes : the result is to suggest 
a new view as to its morphology. Previous writers (with the 
exception of Griffith) have assumed that this most wonderful 
