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Updated: June 19, 2025
As they went on farther they were in a soft green twilight with at rare intervals the sharp bright rays of the sun, like golden arrows, darting through the dense shade, and a patch of luxuriantly growing pitcher-plants or orchids, more beautiful than any that had previously met their eyes. "Mind the elephant-holes!" cried Ali, who was behind. "All right," said Tom Long, who was leading the way.
Near the top we came upon a bank of pitcher-plants, the pitchers of some of them being fully six inches long. A mile or so farther on, we halted and dismounted near a little ranchería, Butbut by name, in a corner of the hills, the people of which had been assembled for the "Commission."
His courtesy his gentlemanly bearing was the talk of the whole place; and regularly every morning one of his Malay slaves or bond-servants used to carry up and lay in the residency verandah a large bunch of deliciously fresh orchids, or pitcher-plants, or a great branch of some sweet-scented flowering shrub, for which he always received the ladies' thanks in a calm, courteous way that quite won their confidence.
Under such conditions the cunning sundews and the ruthless pitcher-plants set deceptive honey traps for unsuspecting insects, which they catch and kill, absorbing and using up the protoplasmic contents of their bodies, by way of manure, to supply their quota of nitrogenous material.
Here the number of orchidaceous plants greatly increased, hanging down from the boughs of nearly all the trees, clinging to them so closely that they often appeared to belong to the tree. The ferns, too, were in great variety; among them were many curious pitcher-plants. Thirsty from our walk, we were looking about for water, when my uncle went up to one of these remarkable productions of nature.
Pitcher-plants too, some of huge size, dotted the ground every here and there where the steamer passed close to the shore so close at times that the ends of the yards brushed the trees; and yet the vessel took no harm, for the deep water ran in places to the banks, and though often half covered with weedy growth, the river was canal-like in its deeper parts, where the sluggish stream steadily flowed along to join its more rapid brother miles below.
The pitcher-plants and the rare scarlet amherstia looked lovely, as did also the great groups of yellow and green stemmed bamboos. There were magnolias, shaddocks, hibiscus, the almost too fragrant yellow-flowered champac, sacred to Hindoo mythology; nutmeg and cinnamon trees, tea and coffee, and every other conceivable plant and tree, growing in the wildest luxuriance.
Delicate ferns and dew-gemmed pitcher-plants would quiver there, and the spikes of the many-coloured gladioli would thrust from the earth like spears; and the sweet-scented clematis and the passion-vine would trail and blossom in rose and white and purple on the edges of the kloofs and gorges, every stem and leaf and bud and blossom growing and rejoicing in the balmy breeze and the glorious June sunshine; the cruel, lashing rains, the devastating floods, and the burning droughts forgotten as though they had never been.
The main facts known respecting the American pitcher-plants have, as was natural, been ascertained in this country; and we gave an abstract, two years ago, of our then incipient knowledge. Much has been learned since, although all the observations have been of a desultory character.
He was told by his friend that pitcher-plants were very numerous in that region; that every mountain-top abounded with them; that they would be found trailing along the ground and climbing over shrubs and stunted trees, with their elegant pitchers hanging in every direction. Some of these, he said, were long and slender, others broad and short.
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