"Mr E. () went up a mountain near and brought me down some grand trailing specimens of the largest of all pitcher-plants, which I festooned round the balcony by its yards of trailing stems. I painted a portrait of the largest, and my picture afterwards induced Mr Veitch to send a traveller to seek the seeds, from which he raised plants and Sir Joseph Hooker named the species ''Nepenthes northiana''. These pitchers are often over a foot long, and richly covered with crimson blotches."

"The specimen from which Miss North's drawing was made was procured by Mr. Herbert Everett of the Borneo Company, who "traversed pathless forests amid snakes and leeches to find and bring it down to the artist." "Only those," writes Miss North, "who have been in such places can understand the difficulties of progress there. The specimens grew on the branches of a tree about 1000 feet above the sea on the limestone mountains of Sarawak. When I received them I tied them in festoons all round the verandah, and grumbled at having only one small half-sheet of paper left to paint them on.""

"Your figure of Nepenthes Northiana was very good. Miss North's drawing, however, has, if I recollect right, a ground-tint of bright reddish-crimson on which darker blotches are laid. It is a fine thing, and, as I firmly believe, a natural hybrid between N. sanguinea × N. Veitchii. The oblique mouth of the urns would suggest N. Rajah as one of the parents, but then his highness only holds court, so far as we know at present, on Kina Balu, 250 miles further north, and never at a less altitude than 4500 feet, rising to near 10,000 feet.
In earlier times he may have been an inhabitant of the plains—at any rate no one can place the pitchers of N. Northiana, N. Veitchii, and N. sanguinea side by side without being struck by their affinity. Again, a glance at your engraving of N. Northiana reminds one of a long-urned form of N. Rajah in obliquity of mouth and its wavy-margined frill. The ''cauline'' pitchers of N. Rajah have never yet been figured. I was with Mr. Harry Veitch when Miss North first showed him the picture of N. Northiana, and it was a revelation to us both. I had the latitude and longitude of its habitat in my portfolio when I left Chelsea for Borneo, but unfortunately never had the chance of seeing Sarawak ; my lot was the wild north-west coast, among the pirate chiefs, and very good genial fellows I found them !"