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Nepenthes pulchra
'Pulchra' is Latin for 'beautiful', and anyone who sees the lower pitchers of this species understands the choice: robust, bulbous below, bright red with a broad ribbed peristome. Nepenthes pulchra was announced online in August 2011 and formally described the same year in the first volume of New Nepenthes, a book series by Stewart McPherson, by a German-Filipino team with researchers from Central Mindanao University. The species is known only from Mount Kiamo in Bukidnon Province, in the interior of Mindanao, and was one of the first in a series of new pitcher plants described from the mountains of central Mindanao over the past fifteen years.
Identification
A climber with stems up to five metres long and six millimetres thick. The leaves are linear, to 28 cm long and 5 cm wide, with three or four longitudinal veins on each side of the midrib; the petiole is broadly winged, with wings up to three centimetres running down the stem. The foliage is yellowish green or flushed pinkish red, and the midrib and tendril can be pure red. Lower pitchers are up to 35 cm tall and 6 cm wide, usually smaller; the bottom quarter to third is swollen, often bulbous, and above it the pitcher becomes cylindrical. Two wings up to eight millimetres wide, fringed to a centimetre, run down the front. The peristome is flattened, up to 2.5 cm wide and especially broad at the sides and under the lid, with ribs up to two millimetres high. The outside is pure red with narrow blotches of yellowish green, reddish purple or purplish black. Upper pitchers are longer still, to 42 cm, with an ovate to almost spherical base and funnel-shaped above.
Similar species
Confusion lies mainly with Nepenthes pantaronensis, which occurs in the same part of Mindanao and also has large pitchers with a bulbous base and broad peristome. According to that species' describers, Nepenthes pulchra has three or four rather than two longitudinal veins per leaf half, lower pitchers with distinctly fringed wings, and a broadly winged petiole even at the base of the plant. The ecological difference is plainer still: Nepenthes pulchra grows strictly on the ground in open scrub, Nepenthes pantaronensis high in the trees of closed montane forest. From Nepenthes talaandig it differs by much larger lower pitchers with a much broader peristome.
The trap and how it works
A pitfall trap with a ribbed peristome. The ribs stand up to two millimetres high and two millimetres apart and extend on the inner edge into narrow teeth up to three millimetres long, which hang over the inner wall like a row of hooks. An insect slipping on the wet rim slides over those teeth into the pitcher and finds no hold on the inside. The lid bears evenly scattered nectar glands on its underside and, close to its attachment, a rounded triangular appendage up to five millimetres long. Lower pitchers stand on the ground and catch walking animals; upper pitchers, with their funnel shape, are more directed at flying insects. The prey itself has not been studied.
Habitat and ecology
Strictly terrestrial, in clearings and montane scrub on ultramafic soil, usually in strong or direct sunlight, from 1300 to 1800 m (R3, B5, B6). Ultramafic soils are poor in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and rich in heavy metals, and the vegetation on them stays low and open: a setting in which a pitcher plant wins the competition for light and draws its nutrients from prey. The type collection was gathered at 1790 m.
Distribution and elevation
Endemic to Mindanao and so far known only from Mount Kiamo in Bukidnon Province, in the mountainous interior of the island. The species may well occur on neighbouring mountains with ultramafic soil, but this has not been published. The interior of Bukidnon has yielded a whole series of new pitcher plants since 2010, which above all shows how poorly the region had been explored until then.
- Recorded (one-degree cells)
Forms and variation
No varieties have been described. Leaf colour ranges from yellowish green to pinkish red, and the pitchers are not always equally red: the blotches on the red outer surface can be yellowish green, reddish purple or almost black, in varying amounts. The description mentions no natural hybrids. Plants sold as Nepenthes pulchra come from tissue culture or seed and say nothing about variation in the wild.
Where and when to see it
The species grows in open terrain and is therefore, once at the right altitude, relatively easy to see: the red, bulbous lower pitchers sit among low scrub and stand out from a distance. A visit does require permission from local authorities and communities, and a guide who knows the trails. Do not leave the trails in open ultramafic vegetation; the soil is fragile and plants are easily trampled.
Conservation status
The species has not (yet) been assessed for the Red List. Knowledge of its populations is limited to one mountain, and for a species with so small a known range, collection and habitat loss are the main risks. Conspicuous species in particular are at risk of illegal collection for the trade, as has happened with other recently described Philippine pitcher plants. As a member of Nepenthes it is listed in CITES Appendix II, so international trade in wild plants requires a permit; propagation in cultivation reduces pressure on wild plants.
Scientific name
Nepenthes pulchra | Gronemeyer, McPherson, Coritico, Micheler, Marwinski & Amoroso, 2011
Nepenthes pulchra was described in 2011 by Thomas Gronemeyer, Stewart McPherson, Franco Coritico, Volker Micheler, Wolfram Marwinski and Victor Amoroso, in the book New Nepenthes: Volume One (pp. 424-439). Mount Kiamo, Mindanao, Philippines, at 1,300-1,800 m elevation — the same mountain as N. ceciliae (golf 20). The name is Latin for "beautiful"; an explicit source confirmation of this straightforward derivation was not found.
World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), via Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.