What is "monkey-cups"

Nepenthes \Ne*pen"thes\, n. [NL., fr. Gr. ?. See Nepenthe.]

1. Same as Nepenthe.
   --Milton.

2. (Bot.) A genus of climbing plants found in tropical areas of India, Malaya, Australia, etc., which have the leaves prolonged into a kind of stout tendril terminating in a pitcherlike appendage, whence the plants are often called pitcher plants and monkey-cups. There are about thirty species, of which the best known is Nepenthes distillatoria. See Pitcher plant.

n. (plural of monkey-cup English)