The Pitcher Plants (Nepenthes) form the only known genus or family of the botanical order Nepenthaceae. They are wonderful and beautiful children of Nature, and richly reward examination. There are about twenty members of the family at present known. They are nearly all natives of the tropics of Asia - especially of India and China. In the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, where Nature delights to bear some of her rarest and most wonderful offspring, they are found in shallow swamps in the greatest abundance. A very beautiful species and perhaps the best known of all the Nepenthes, N. distillatoria, is a native of Ceylon. Two species have been found in Madagascar.

Wherever Nepenthes are exhibited they attract attention. The writer has often seen crowds gathered round a few specimens on horticultural exhibition tables gazing at them with wonder and interest. Certainly they deserve examination; for with their fresh, bright green leaves, and richly spotted appendages hanging so lightly, they are indeed beautiful objects. Botanists, perhaps from the scarcity of plants to examine, have not investigated their habits and the functions of their various parts as they deserve, and much yet remains for explanation.

The pitcher like appendages from which the name "Pitcher Plant" is derived, are supported by a stalk rising from the apex of the leaf, and in some plants measure as much as twelve inches long. The petiole or leaf-stalk is contracted at its base, but higher expands into a flat limb which some botanists term the leaf, others only an expansion of the leaf-stalk. The midrib of this limb or leaf is prolonged, and from it springs a leafy expansion like a pitcher both in shape and capacity for holding water. The pitcher is supplied with a cover or lid attached by a perfectly working hinge, which in the young plant opens at the approach of morning and gradually shuts as the twilight passes into night. As the plant grows older this lid remains constantly open. Inside the pitcher a watery fluid is secreted. In some species the fluid is insipid, in others, sweet. When heated or boiled an odor like that from baked apples rises, and when evaporated a residuum of minute crystals of binoxalate of potash remains. The fluid rises into the pitcher by means of small glands or cells at the base, and is present in sufficient quantity to drown flies and other small insects which enter the goblet searching for nectar.

Some investigators assert that the plant draws nourishment from the bodies of insects entrapped in the pitcher. This, however, is disputed by others. In some plants under the writer's observation, he noticed that the bodies of flies, gnats and other insects quickly disappeared as if dissolved by the action of the exudation. It is exceedingly probable that Nature has supplied the Nepenth with this means of procuring nourishment, as the pitcher forms a perfect and successful trap for the smaller kinds of insects, and few of them succeed in escaping when once they have entered the (to them) deadly goblet.

Nepenthes Rajah.

The species of Nepenthes chiefly cultivated in hothouses, as being the finest and most easily grown, are N. distillatoria, N. ampullacea, and N. Rafflesiana. The latter is a very fine species, and was discovered about forty years ago, in Singapore by the Eastern traveller, Sir Stamford Raffles, from whom it has received its specific name.

The largest and most beautiful Nepenth yet discovered, however, is one found in Borneo some years ago, and named by Dr. Hooker, of Kew Gardens, England, Nepenthes Rajah, in honor of Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak when the plant was discovered. The pitcher of this species sometimes measures twelve inches long by six inches broad. The stalk by which the pitcher is attached to the plant is as thick as a man's middle finger. It is a pity that no living plant of this magnificent Nepenth has yet been brought to America or Britain, but a dried specimen may be seen in the Herbarium of Kew Gardens, which will well repay a few minutes' examination, by those who visit that realm of wonders more astonishing and enchanting than all the airy fancies of the wonder-land of our forefathers.

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[The "Rajah" has been introduced by the famous firm of Veitch & Sons, of Chelsea, England, and we give an illustration of it with the article.

No one seems to know why Linnaeus gave the name Nepenthes to the genus, - the name being Greek for a poisonous draught given in connection with one of the stories connected with the famous Helen of Troy. It was a sort of pleasant opiate, that led the anxious head to lie down to pleasant dreams. Whether the insects that find their fate in these pitchers sleep themselves pleasantly away to their final resting place, and may have given the hint for the name to Linnaeus, we do not know, or whether there has been anything in its history to suggest the Nepenthine draught. - Ed. G. M.