Four New Species of Nepenthes

Nepenthes amabilis upper pitcher

Recently, Thomas Gronemeyer,  Fulgent Coritico, Andreas Wistuba, David Marwinski, Tobias Gieray, Marius Micheler, François Sockhom Mey, and Victor Amoroso published an article in Plants describing four new species of Nepenthes - Nepenthes amabilis, Nepenthes cornuta, Nepenthes pantaronensis, and Nepenthes talaandig. I thought I'd do a short article on each of these plants in celebration of their discovery/publication.

N. amabilis

Perhaps my favorite of these four - and the most spectacular in my opinion - is N. amabilis, the lovely pitcher plant. Like the other three newly described species, this plant is from Mount Sumagaya and a section of the Pantaron range in Mindanao in the Philippines. It is my prediction that, once Mindanao becomes safer - and, thus, more explorers are willing to visit - we will see a slate of new plants from that island.

Nepenthes cornuta lower pitcher

Like N. amabilis, Nepenthes cornuta is a colorful highland plant, at least in terms of its lower pitchers. Its upper pitchers, seen below, are greenish and rather unremarkable, similar to several other species' upper pitchers.

Nepenthes cornuta upper pitcher

One of the interesting things about these two colorful plants is the slight divergence in habitat. N. cornuta grows in ultramafic soils (magma created, high iron content soils) at around 1000 m above sea level, whereas N. amabilis grows only on Mount Sumagaya in open areas from 1600 m to 2247 m above sea level. In terms of pitcher growth, N. cornuta is a member of the famed 'alata' group, while N. amabilis stands on its own with no obviously close relatives. (N. amabilis does, however, grow with an hybridize with Nepenthes pantaronensis, which was also described in this paper).

Nepenthes pantaronensis

N. pantaroensis is interesting because, among the four plants described, it is the only one whose lower and upper pitchers look remarkably similar. It is similar to Nepenthes petiolata and Nepenthes pulchra, both of which are also from Mindanao. As with the other described species, it grows in upper montane forests.

Nepenthes talaandig lower pitcher

Lastly, the authors described Nepenthes talaandig, named after the indigenous Talaandig people. The lower pitchers of this highland species remind me of a dark colored member of the Nepenthes alata complex. Specifically, they seem to have some of the bulbosity of Nepenthes alata var. boschiana. (Of course, that variety of alata is not, actually, formally described, nor have Jebb and Cheek - or anyone else - dealt with how it relates to the rest of the N. alata group).

Nepenthes talaandig upper pitcher

The upper pitchers of N. talaandig again remind me of an elongated alata, but with the coloration of Nepenthes mirabilis var. echinostoma. Similar to N. cornuta, N. talaandig grows at around 1000 m above sea level in ultramafic soils.