The pith plant is procured from Oan, nāām, near the province of See, chuen, and is named, in the language of the country, _Toong Shue_,[31] and the following representation may convey some idea of the shrub, and assist persons visiting China to procure, if possible, specimens in flower or fructification. [Illustration: CORCHORUS CAPSULARIS.] The grass-cloth plant is produced in great abundance, both in a wild and cultivated state, in the provinces of Fo, kien, and Che, kien, and is named by the Chinese Māā, Shūe.[32] [Illustration: TOONG SHUE.] That curious plant, the _Nepenthes distillatoria_, or monkey-cup of the Malays, is occasionally found abundant near running streams, upon the islands in the vicinity of Macao; the Chinese name it the pig-basket grass, (Chu, long, tzo,[33]) from the appendages or pitchers of the leaves having, when placed horizontally, some resemblance to the form of the baskets in which the pigs are carried to market. The Chinese avail themselves of the well-known obstinacy of these animals, and by that means succeed in getting the beast into the narrow conveyance; by placing the head of the animal close to the entrance of the basket, and pulling the creature by the tail, it enters immediately. The dwarf trees are certainly one of the curiosities of the vegetable kingdom in China, being a joint production of nature and art: they are very small, placed in pots of various kinds, upon the backs of earthenware buffaloes, frogs, towers, and rock-work, which constitutes the Chinese taste in what these people would be pleased to term “ornamental gardening.” The plants have all the growth and appearance of an antiquated tree, but of an exceedingly diminutive size. Elms, bamboos, and other trees, are treated in this manner, and are abundant in the nursery gardens about Macao and Canton: they are produced from young healthy branches, selected from a large tree, which, being decorticated and covered with a mixture of clay and chopped straw, as soon as they give out roots, are cut off and transplanted: the branches are then tied in the various forms required, so as to oblige them to grow in particular positions; and many other methods are adopted to confine and prevent the spreading of the root; the stems, or perhaps they might then be termed trunks, are smeared with sugar, and holes are bored in them, in which sugar is also placed to attract the ants, who, eating about it, give the trunk an appearance of age. I saw at Mr. Beale’s a number of dwarf trees, which have been in his possession nearly forty years; and the only operation performed to keep them in that peculiar and curious state, is to clip the sprigs that may sprout out too luxuriantly.