Page:Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Volume 73 (1847).djvu/44



Sir Stamford Raffles' Pitcher-Plant.

Nat. Ord.

''Gen. Char. Flores'' dioici. Perigonium calycinum, profunde quadrifidum. Stamina in columnam centralem connata; anthercæ 16, in capitulum subsphæricum congestm, biloculares, longitudinaliter dehiscentes.. Perigonium maris. Ovarium liberum, subtetragonum, quadriloculare. Ovula plurima, septorum parietibus adscendentim affixa, anatropa. Stigma sessile, discoideum, obsolete quadrilobum. Capsula quadrilocularis, loculicido-quadrivalvis, valvis medio septiferis. Semina plurima, setaceo-fusiformia, adscendentia, imbricata: testa membranacea, utrinque relaxata; nucleo centrali inverso, subgloboso. Embryo in axi albuminis carnosi cylindricus, orthotropus; radicula brevi, infera.–Suffrutices in ''Asia tropica et in Madagascaria indigeni; petiolis alternis, basi brevissime vaginantibus, foliaceo-dilatatis, apice cirrhosis, cirrho ascidiophoro, lamina articulata ascidium claudente; floribus racemosis vel paniculatis. Endl.''

Rafflesiana; foliis petiolatis inferiorum ascidiis ventricoso-campanulatis antice late membranaceo-alatis alis longe ciliatis superiorum infundibuliformibus nudis, omnium ore pulcherrime pectinato-striato oblique postice assurgente.

Rafflesiana. Jack, ''in Hooker, Comp. to Bot. Mag. p.'' 270. Korthals, ''Bot. Ind. Batav. p.'' 35.

To Dr. Jack is due the discovery of this remarkable species of Nepenthes, in the island of Singapore. It was our privilege, in the first volume of the Companion to the Botanical Magazine', to publish the letters of that distinguished botanist so early lost to science. He relates the circumstance of finding this pitcher plant in one of his many valued communications, addressed to his family at Aberdeen. Writing from Singapore, June 20th, 1819, Dr. Jack says, "My last letter from hence was sent by way of Penang; this goes home via Bengal. It is impossible to conceive anything more beautiful than the approach to Singapore, through the Archipelago of islands that lie at the extremity of the Straits of Malacca. Seas of glass wind among innumerable islets, clothed in all the luxuriance of tropical vegetation, and basking in the full brilliancy of a tropical sky. The island of St. John's, which forms the western point of the bay of Singapore,