One Of The Broad Sort, Nepenthes Rajah, Will
Hold Two Quarts Of Water In Its Pitcher.
Another, Nepenthes
Edwardsiania, has a narrow pitcher twenty inches long; while the
plant itself grows to a length of twenty feet.
Ferns are abundant, but are not so varied as on the volcanic
mountains of Java; and Tree-ferns are neither so plentiful nor so
large as on that island. They grow, however, quite down to the
level of the sea, and are generally slender and graceful plants
from eight to fifteen feet high. Without devoting much time to
the search I collected fifty species of Ferns in Borneo, and I
have no doubt a good botanist would have obtained twice the
number. The interesting group of Orchids is very abundant, but,
as is generally the case, nine-tenths of the species have small
and inconspicuous flowers. Among the exceptions are the fine
Coelogynes, whose large clusters of yellow flowers ornament the
gloomiest forests, and that most extraordinary plant, Vanda
Lowii, which last is particularly abundant near some hot springs
at the foot of the Penin-jauh Mountain. It grows on the lower
branches of trees, and its us strange pendant flower-spires often
hang down so as almost to reach the ground. These are generally
six or eight feet long, bearing large and handsome flowers three
inches across, and varying in colour from orange to red, with
deep purple-red spots. I measured one spike, which reached the
extraordinary length of nine feet eight inches, and bore thirty-
six flowers, spirally arranged upon a slender thread-like stalk.
Specimens grown in our English hot-houses have produced flower-
spires of equal length, and with a much larger number of
blossoms.
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