Day & Son. Lith. to the Queen.
Published by Smith, Elder & Co., 65. Cornhill, London.
NEPENTHES EDWARDSIANA. Low.
“The inflorescence is hardly in proportion. Male raceme, 30 inches long, of which 20 are occupied by the flowers; upper part and flowers clothed with short rusty pubescence. Peduncles slender, simple or bifid. Fruiting raceme stout. Peduncles 1½ inches long, often bifid. Capsule, ¾ inch long, ⅓ broad, rather turgid, densely covered with rusty tomentum.”[18]
The pitchers, as I have before observed, rest on the ground in a circle, and the young plants have cups of the same form as those of the old ones. This morning, while the men were cooking their rice, as we sat before the tent enjoying our chocolate, observing one of our followers carrying water in a splendid specimen of the Nepenthes Rajah, we desired him to bring it to us, and found that it held exactly four pint bottles. It was 19 inches in circumference. We afterwards saw others apparently much larger, and Mr. Low, while wandering in search of flowers, came upon one in which was a drowned rat.
As we ascended, we left the brushwood and entered a tangled jungle, but few of the trees were large, and the spur of the mountain became very narrow, sometimes not much wider than the path, and greatly encumbered at one part by the twining stems of the Nepenthes Edwardsiana. This handsome plant was not, however, much diffused along the spur, but confined to a space about a quarter of a mile in length, and grew upon the trees around, with its fine pitchers hanging from all the lower boughs. We measured one plant and it was twenty feet in length; it was quite smooth, and the leaves were of a very acute shape at both ends. It is a long, cylindrical, finely-frilled pitcher, growing on every leaf; one we picked measured twenty-one inches and a half long, by two and a half in breadth. They swelled out a little towards the base, which is bright pea green, the rest of the cylinder being of a bright brick-red colour. Its mouth is nearly circular, the column with the border surrounding the mouth being finely formed of thin plates about a sixth of an inch apart, and about the same in height, and both were of a flesh colour; the handsome lid is of a circular shape. The dried specimen forwarded to Dr. Hooker only measured eighteen inches. The plant is epiphytal, growing on casuarinas (species nova). The pitchers of the young creepers precisely resembled those of the older ones, except in size.
Whilst examining these, and vainly searching for their flowers, Mr. Low came upon a small species of a bright crimson colour; its pitchers were three inches long, and one and a half broad at the widest part, and the mouth was oblique. Another, but which may be the same in a more mature state, was green, with irregular spots of purple, having stems of the latter colour; it was a low plant, not reaching above four feet in height.
A very handsome plant of a trailing habit also grew on this spur; it had large bunches of beautiful flowers of the colour of the brightest of the seedling scarlet geraniums, and while endeavouring to obtain a view to the eastward, my eye fell upon something of a beautiful white, which proved to be a lovely orchid. Of these Mr. Low made a great collection; I fear, however, it is not a new one.
The following is the botanical description of the Nepenthes Edwardsiana:—
“Ascidia magna, ore lamellis latis disciformibus annularibus remotis instructo.