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Nepenthes cabanae
The Pantaron range in the heart of Mindanao is one of the largest still-forested mountain areas of the island, and botanically hardly explored: it is remote and was long difficult to access. During expeditions funded by Veneracion Cabana, a patron of research in the Pantaron and Tangkulan ranges, botanists from Central Mindanao University found a pitcher plant on Mount Malimumu in 2015, which they described in 2019 as Nepenthes cabanae. The name honours Cabana.
No photograph of this species under a Creative Commons licence or in the public domain is in the guide yet.
Identification
A large climber with stems to eight metres, six to eight millimetres thick and slightly angular. The leaves are sessile, more or less linear, 26 to 34 cm long and 3 to 4.5 cm wide, with four longitudinal nerves parallel to the midrib, and they run down the stem unequally on the two sides. Lower and intermediate pitchers are almost cylindrical, 16 to 18 cm tall: the lower half slightly inflated, the upper half narrower and cylindrical towards the mouth. Down the front run wings five to twelve centimetres long that fade into ridges towards the tendril, with fringe up to four millimetres. The peristome is flattened and very broad, one and a half to over two centimetres, with ribs up to a millimetre apart and small triangular teeth that do not project beyond the margin. The lid is almost circular, 3.5 to 4.5 cm, notched at the tip, with an appendage reduced to a keel. Upper pitchers are 16 to 19.5 cm tall, slightly inflated below, with a hip and cylindrical to slightly funnel-shaped above; wings are sometimes present. Living plants are strongly suffused with red, the pitchers marbled red towards the mouth, the peristome greenish yellow with narrow maroon bands.
Similar species
The authors compared the species with Nepenthes surigaoensis of north-eastern Mindanao, which has strongly and evenly decurrent leaves, wholly cylindrical or ellipsoid lower pitchers and distinct peristome teeth projecting beyond the margin. Nepenthes manobo, also from central Mindanao, has non-decurrent leaves with three nerves and upper pitchers without wings. The combination for Nepenthes cabanae is thus: unequally decurrent leaves with four nerves, lower pitchers with a slightly inflated lower half, and a broad peristome with inconspicuous teeth.
The trap and how it works
A pitfall with an exceptionally broad rim. The flattened peristome, one and a half to two centimetres wide, forms a large smooth surface around the mouth where insects lose their grip when it is wet. Inside, the smooth waxy zone covers two-thirds to three-quarters of the pitcher, the digestive zone with glands only the lowest quarter to third; that means a long slide between rim and fluid, up which captured animals cannot climb back. Under the lid lie ovate to elliptic nectar glands, evenly spread towards the margin. The tendril of lower and intermediate pitchers does not coil, that of upper pitchers does; the upper pitchers thus hang from a tendril that winds around branches. Nothing has been published on prey.
Habitat and ecology
Montane tropical rainforest at about 1020 to 1050 m, where the plant scrambles over undergrowth and shrubs, on clay soil and in relatively little light (B1). The forest is dominated by a remarkable mixture of conifers and broadleaved trees: Agathis philippinensis, Dacrycarpus, Falcatifolium gruezoi, Phyllocladus, Gymnostoma rumphianum, Lithocarpus and Shorea, with ferns such as Dicranopteris linearis and Dipteris conjugata. The name Pantaron comes from the local word 'pantad', gravel, and that gravel dominates the slopes between 500 and 1020 m.
Distribution and elevation
Endemic to Mindanao, and known only from Mount Malimumu in the Pantaron range, municipality of San Fernando, Bukidnon province, between 1020 and 1050 m. The label 'Mindanao' in our species list can thus be narrowed to this mountain in central Mindanao. The Pantaron range is large and barely explored; that the species grows elsewhere in the chain cannot be ruled out.
- Native
Forms and variation
No varieties have been described. Colour varies strongly with light: the description calls living plants 'much suffused with red', but in the shade of the forest pitchers will be greener. The upper pitchers sometimes carry wings, sometimes not. No natural hybrids have been reported.
Where and when to see it
Mount Malimumu is remote and the Pantaron range is no place for an independent hike: go only with local guidance and after enquiring with the municipality and the indigenous communities who manage the land. At the right altitude, just above a thousand metres, look in the undergrowth for the long, narrow leaves of a climber and for pitchers with a strikingly broad, greenish-yellow rim with red bands.
Conservation status
The species has not yet been assessed by the IUCN (Not Evaluated). The authors rated it Critically Endangered: the range is smaller than ten square kilometres, and they counted only about ten plants, ten to twenty-five metres apart. As threats they named quarrying, illegal logging, agriculture and slash-and-burn cultivation. Like all Nepenthes it is listed in CITES Appendix II.
Scientific name
Nepenthes cabanae | Lagunday & Amoroso, 2019
Nepenthes cabanae was described in 2019 by Noel E. Lagunday and Victor B. Amoroso, in the Philippine Journal of Systematic Biology 13(2): 39-45. Mount Malimumu in the Pantaron Range, Central Mindanao, Philippines. The specific epithet honours Dr. Veneracion G. Cabana, who funded expeditions into unexplored areas of central Mindanao, including the Pantaron and Tangkulan mountain ranges.
World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), via Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.