Book Review: Nepenthes of Borneo

The Cover

Charles Clarke's Nepenthes of Borneo is one of the rarest of the recently published books about carnivorous plants. Among Charles Clarke's books, its one of the few that is not very available. It's such a high quality book, it's not hard to see why it's so expensive on the secondary book market. (My suggestion, if you'd like a copy, is to hunt around on used book sites. You might be able to find a copy for under $50 on a few of those sites).

A Sample Page for Nepenthes burbidgeae

Despite being almost two decades old and, thus, missing a few species and some recent scientific findings, this is one of the most comprehensive books I've read about Nepenthes, especially the Nepenthes of Borneo. I guess the only fair comparison would be to Stewart McPherson's Pitcher Plants of the Old World. (Review Here). Personally, I prefer Clarke's series of books to McPherson's. Although Clarke's series of books has fewer photographs, it is less repetitive, has more information which is useful for cultivating the species/hybrids, and has a lot more in-depth scientific information about the relationship of the plants to prey and their environment. That kind of information makes for extremely interesting reading (in my opinion) and is definitely more helpful for those of us who are growing the plants. In sum, I would definitely recommend Clarke's series of books which, although out-of-print, aren't too expensive to obtain. I can only wish that they will get updated sometime in the future.