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Post by philgreen on Jun 23, 2008 8:09:17 GMT -10
Hi,
I've recently received some N. smilesii, Thailand, seeds. It was labled mirabilis var smilesii. I've read plants labled mirabilis var smilisii tend to be just a red form of mirabilis. Also that in 1985 H. Weiner called a plant mirabilis var smilesii. On further checks my seeds are smilisii.
But, is N. smilesii Official ? Has it been officially reinstated, or is it still officially N. mirabilis var smilesii.
I'm familiar with Nepenthes of Thailand web site and that smilisii does seem to be a 'good species' but just want to know what the official situation is and if anything is 'in the pipe line' to reinstate this species if it hasn't already been done.
Thanks for any help.
Phil.
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Post by sulud1 on Jun 23, 2008 9:39:36 GMT -10
Hi,
I have a pic comparing N. mirabilis seed with N. smilesii and others @www.groups.yahoo.com/group/nepenthesclub under the photo file dried specimens.
Truly,
Tom
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Post by sockhom on Jun 23, 2008 10:06:18 GMT -10
Hello Phil  , Danser synonymised N. smilesii (described by Hemsley in 1895) with N. mirabilis in 1928 (in his monograph). In 1997, Jebb and Cheek noted that the type specimens of N. smilesii (deposited in Kew Gardens herbarium) is very atypical of N. mirabilis (because of the venation). They thus stated that N. smilesii 's inclusion with N. mirabilis is premature. More research needs to be done. In fact, the plant shares features with N. thorelii (whatever it is) and N. anamensis. In their 1997 work, Jebb and Cheek mentionned N. smilesii in their "little known taxa "section. According to Marcello Catalano and Cheek himself, N. anamensis and N. smilesii are conspecific but this hasn't been stated yet in an official paper. "N. mirabilis var. smilesii" is just a form of mirabilis, this name has just contributed to the current mess. Hope it helped. Friendly, François. PS: Phil, if your seeds come from Phu Kradung, then, it is without doubt N. smilesii... and it you will have a high rate of germination, provided the seeds are fresh. |
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Post by philgreen on Jun 23, 2008 12:04:10 GMT -10
Hi, I have a pic comparing N. mirabilis seed with N. smilesii and others @www.groups.yahoo.com/group/nepenthesclub under the photo file dried specimens. Truly, Tom Hi Tom, I couldn't access any pic's. Is this a members only site ? I noticed a difference between my mirabilis seeds (long and thin) and this smilisii seed (short and fat). I've also seen that Viking seed which is also possibly considered just mirabilis, is also short and fat. But just today I noticed one seed of smilisii is germinating  This is sending out a very fat root first, whilst my mirabilis germinates with very small leaves first. Viking seems to be leaves first like mirabilis. Hello Phil , PS: Phil, if your seeds come from Phu Kradung, then, it is without doubt N. smilesii... and it you will have a high rate of germination, provided the seeds are fresh. Hi François, I was familiar with that time line, hence wondering what is official. I've had the seed from CPS (UK) Sheila has been very helpful emailing the society which provided her with the seeds to clarify what they were and where they were from - YEP, Phu Kradung, which is why I was certain it was smilisii. Sown on 8th June, 1st seed germinating today 23rd June - 15 days. The society they came from received them as smilisii, but labeled them as mirabilis var smilisii because they use this as there guide. "This is what Jan Schlauer's CP database has to say: N: [Nepenthes mirabilis {(Lour.) Druce} f.smilesii {(Hemsl.) Hort.Westphal}] P: Plantarara Produkte:43 (2000) BN: [Nepenthes smilesii {Hemsl.}] S: =[Nepenthes mirabilis {(Lour.) Druce}] N: [Nepenthes mirabilis {(Lour.) Druce} var.smilesii {(Hemsl.) Hort.Weiner}] P: in sched. (1985) BN: [Nepenthes smilesii {Hemsl.}] S: =[Nepenthes mirabilis {(Lour.) Druce}] N: [Nepenthes smilesii {Hemsl.}] P: Kew Bull.:116 (1895) T: at Baw Saw Kawng, N TH, Smiles s.n. (K) S: =[Nepenthes mirabilis {(Lour.) Druce}] " So, yes I know I have smilisii, but wondering on it's Official status. I also grow one of BE's (seed grown) anamensis from Vietnam and was amazed how paper thin the leaves are  So, would I be right in concluding that the official status of smilisii is some what 'in limbo'  Cheers, Phil. PS. the bokor are doing well, after their initial 2 weeks+ in the post. |
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Post by sulud1 on Jun 24, 2008 10:08:35 GMT -10
Phil,
Yes the yahoo group is a free member sign in site.
Truly,
Tom
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Dave Evans
Nobiles
dpevans_at_rci.rutgers.edu
Posts: 490
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Post by Dave Evans on Jun 25, 2008 12:00:36 GMT -10
N. smilesii is a good name, and it was the first name applied to at least one taxon, so it is a good species name. Now, in the hundred plus years since that species was named, the name has been applied to a couple of other species through synonomy... Also, N. smilesii has been identified by several authors in different, conflicting ways--it is too complex to get into here. Basically it is not very clear if N. anamensis and N. smilesii are the same species or not.
Was there any location information with the seed? Short seeds don't sound like N. mirabilis, but it is widespread and variable so considering just this one detail, I cannot say one way or the other with much certainty.
N. smilesii and/or N. anamensis are generally highland plants. N. mirabilis var. smilesii would be a lowlander. Once they start to grow, it will be easy to tell if they are N. mirabilis. N. m. has very rough leaf margins, nearly all other species include N. smilesii and/or N. anamensis have smooth leaf margins. When still small, most Nepenthes species can show some ragged leaf margins, but the margins on N. mirabilis are saw blade-like and stay that way while the plant grows.
Nepenthes "tiger", N. "red tiger", N. bokor and N. thorelii appear to be varieties of, or even very closely related species to N. smilesii. I am leaning toward N. bokor and N. anamensis being separate.
N. "viking" is not a form of N. mirabilis, it is a lowland species related to N. anamensis, which might be the same thing as N. smilesii.
And apparently, N. kampotiana is also a good species, but the plants we have labeled such are not it, since this species is supposed to be hairless, like N. ventricosa... Is anybody growing the real N. kampotiana?
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Post by Marcello Catalano on Aug 5, 2008 13:19:27 GMT -10
Guys, I tell you, I understand and appreciate the need for the paper, for the official stuff, but if you can't proceed with this matter without a paper from Cheek that says smilesii and anamensis are the same thing, you're going to wait 250 years. Cheek at the moment (the last 8 years) is making a revision of the African flora, I guess it will take more than two weeks for him to do that. Finding some time NOT to describe a new species but to make the anamensis/smilesii matter official is just a dream. I think that's just something he found out, he won't bother to run to pubblish something about that. I think. But if that can help, I'm doing an article for the ICPS to clear up in few words the "indochinese mess", including the smilesii/anamensis situation. The article will be sent to Martin by the ICPS, I guess. Once pubblished I hope it will reppresent something more official. Why is it so difficult to trust the meaningfull and clear opinions of a taxonomist who deeply studied this matter for years, demanding so desperately for the actual piece of paper, while it's so easy to run using meaningless, confusing and wrong names like N. viking, thorelii, giant thorelii and red tiger as if they were the most sure thing on earth even when it's been explained in many occasions/sites/forums that they are everything but that? Take my words as the thoughts of a man in front of his computer at 1:17 in the night, in august, all alone, crazy of love for nepenthes and desperate to keep up such an interesting debate, I'm just enthusiastic of this argument, bored of these hot august nights and desperate for some conversation...didn't mean to be polemic... Dave! YOU are growing the real kampotiana mate! That's what your thorelii is!! Check it out: glabrous, red line on the leaf margin, very small hair on tendril and pitcher...I saw lots of those in Trat! Check my page about Trat, you'll see how the plants I'm growing are the same as yours! Viking related to anamensis??? Mate, come here and have a Corona with me, you're desperate for some debate too !!!! Marcello |
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Dave Evans
Nobiles
dpevans_at_rci.rutgers.edu
Posts: 490
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Post by Dave Evans on Aug 5, 2008 14:04:59 GMT -10
Dave! YOU are growing the real kampotiana mate! That's what your thorelii is!! Check it out: glabrous, red line on the leaf margin, very small hair on tendril and pitcher...I saw lots of those in Trat! Check my page about Trat, you'll see how the plants I'm growing are the same as yours! Viking related to anamensis??? Mate, come here and have a Corona with me, you're desperate for some debate too !!!! Marcello Marcello, I have four different species, all named as N. thorelii by people who owned/collected them before me. One is called "red tiger" which I don't have any pics up on the web. Another one is called N. thorelii from Jeff Shafer who got his plant from a Botanical Garden, the folks in California say it is the same thing as their N. thorelii Kondo... Pics: www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dpevans/Nepenthes/N_thorelii.htmThen I have the plant everyone is now calling N. smilesiiwww.rci.rutgers.edu/~dpevans/Nepenthes/N_anamensis.htmAnd then there is this plant: www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dpevans/Nepenthes/N_sp_Thailand_A.htmWhich of my four "thorelii" is actually N. kampotiana? I think you mean this one: www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dpevans/Nepenthes/N_thorelii.htmIf that is the case, the the hybrid formula for N. 'Dwarf Peacock' would actually be N. kampotiana * (N. ventricosa * N. khasiana). Thanks, Dave |
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Post by Marcello Catalano on Aug 5, 2008 14:25:39 GMT -10
Yeah, sorry, I thought we both knew which plant I was talking about, yeah, it's Jeff Shafer's plant, collected by Kondo in Cambodia (on the coast of Kampot I guess). The sp. Thailand is interesting, you say it comes from Thailand and it's from the highlands. What's the source of these two informations? Is it completely glabrous or slightly pubescent? All the hybrids with the names thorelii-anamensis-kampotiana inside are completely unreliable, as if we already have problems with pure narrowleaved species today, who knows (in most cases, Peacock a part  which of these species were used 50 years ago to make these hybrids. Thank god I don't like hybrids so I just don't care Marcello |
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Dave Evans
Nobiles
dpevans_at_rci.rutgers.edu
Posts: 490
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Post by Dave Evans on Aug 5, 2008 16:38:20 GMT -10
Yeah, sorry, I thought we both knew which plant I was talking about, yeah, it's Jeff Shafer's plant, collected by Kondo in Cambodia (on the coast of Kampot I guess). The sp. Thailand is interesting, you say it comes from Thailand and it's from the highlands. What's the source of these two informations? Is it completely glabrous or slightly pubescent The pitcher are fuzzy to the touch. Densely pubescent, but the hairs are very short so as to be nearly invisible. The leaves are mostly glabrous. The "source" of the information it is a highlander comes from the growing conditions I exposed it to which did not cause it to get sick. The photos I have posted were taken after two weeks in the fall when every night was down into the forties and two night the low was 30F. That's right, there was frost conditions and the plant looked just fine as you can see in the photos, all it did was become darker in color (checkout those black veins on the lids), probably to absorb more infrared. These same conditions nearly killed my N. veitchii * N. lowii growing right next to it. The whole plant become spotted with necrotic areas, but it pulled through, barely. The intermediate hybrid could not handle these conditions, while this plant and N. alata did just fine. I purchased this mystery plant from Henning Von Schmelling, who received as a wild collected "N. thorelii", but he is not sure about the location, but believes it came from Thailand. As soon as I looked at it I said, "Henning there is no way this is N. thorelii!" He was rather taken aback, since he had been calling it by that name for years... But I explained about your website and other efforts, and how a lot more information has come to light recently. That's too bad, 'Dwarf Peacock' is a wonderful plant. This plant, now called N. kampotiana is the mother of many, many hybrids. Most "thorelii" hybrids were made with/using this species. Back to the type of N. smilesii, lids round, maybe not so important... Good to know that. Now, does it actually have fimbriate leaf margins? N. anamensis does not. And yes, I agree this plant is not N. mirabilis, perhaps I wasn't so clear, but I do not agree with Jan Schlauer on this point and that is just from looking at the photograph. However, I'm still not sure it is the same thing as N. anamensis. |
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Post by Marcello Catalano on Aug 5, 2008 23:17:36 GMT -10
When I was at Kew I didn't notice any fimbriate margin, but I didn't even look at it with a magnifying lens, I just saw it was not a mirabilis while it was clearly a smilesii, after having seen tens of N. smilesii in thai herbariums (all, by the way, also checked and re-labelled by Cheek). Even an impossible hybrid with mirabilis couldn't have that flower and those pitchers co-existing with that flower. I don't want to delete the case like the FBI with the x-files, but "sparsely fimbriate margins", come on, could be anything, 4 accidental cilia on the side of the leaf would make it "sparsely fimbriate". About N. anamensis, just check on my website the type specimens of anamensis in the Vietnam pages. If you have the mail of Henning Von Schmelling I could start another of those never ending researches back in time to see where the plant came from. If the hair on the actual leaf blade (excluding tendril and pitcher) is COMPLETELY absent, we can exclude smilesii and kongkandana. But is that COMPLETELY? The striped peristome and the fact that it's probably a highland would make it a new thing, if it's really from Thailand and not from Bokor Maybe François could tell us if there is any feature you can check on this plant to rule out N. bokor or not. Marcello |
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Dave Evans
Nobiles
dpevans_at_rci.rutgers.edu
Posts: 490
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Post by Dave Evans on Aug 6, 2008 12:59:37 GMT -10
Guys, I tell you, I understand and appreciate the need for the paper, for the official stuff, but if you can't proceed with this matter without a paper from Cheek that says smilesii and anamensis are the same thing, you're going to wait 250 years... ...Mate, come here and have a Corona with me, you're desperate for some debate too !!!! Marcello Cool Marcello, thanks for the invitation Anyway, I'm not waiting on a paper "to make it official". The species have already been named, and the names are accepted. I am so happy we are finally making some progress on these plants and we now have a "handle" on a couple of them. You know, just by doing the work, same for François, you guys are teaching yourselves to be taxonomists--at least experts on these Nepenthes species. It isn't easy, but you guys are doing the work and learning as you go. My knowledge can only go so far (not far enough) from studying my plants. Since you fellows can actually travel and see these plants in person; this experience is just as valuable as any that can be learned in a classroom; or even more valuable. So, do you think I have both these (My plants and Michael's?) correctly ID'ed? N. anamensis equals N. smilesii, right? I'll get around to changing the file names on the server and elsewhere : www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dpevans/Nepenthes/N_anamensis.htmThe plants in TC are from John Dekanel (sp?), from what I understand... And those seeds were from Phu Kradung, correct? On Borneo Exotics' website, it mentions the plant is from Vietnam, but I don't know if they are talking about the actual plants they are distibuting, or just the species name being based on a plant from Vietnam... Confusing as ever... |
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Post by Marcello Catalano on Aug 6, 2008 13:10:38 GMT -10
Yes, your N. "anamensis" is N. smilesii.
Your Jeff Shafer's plant is N. kampotiana.
N. sp. Thailand I don't know what it is...if you give me those details we could find it out.
Rob (BE) has N. smilesii from different locations...if I'm not wrong, when I was working there, he said their plants were coming from De Kanel (or maybe I read it on some forum), and so from PK. Then I sent them some seeds of smilesii from Phu Khieo (see my website, AW also got the same seeds) and they told me they also had received some smilesii seeds from Vietnam (I guess from around Dalat, the most popular smilesii area in Vietnam), and that it was good to have the same species from different locations.
Do you have some more recent photos of the plant you call "N. gracilis hybrid" on your website? Did you clear up where it comes from? Wasn't it from the base of the Elephant mountains, not actually ON them...?
Marcello
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Dave Evans
Nobiles
dpevans_at_rci.rutgers.edu
Posts: 490
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Post by Dave Evans on Aug 6, 2008 17:14:01 GMT -10
Marcello, I have no more information about that "gracilis" hybrid... But Bruce Bednar sells them as "N. anamensis" for some reason... I mentioned to him that it isn't, but he was rather confident the ID was good. But he was under the impression there is no N. gracilis near where this plant came, even though he didn't have exact location data...  At least the Florida growers did make an attempt to identify their plants but obtaining the original publications, but as we can see their efforts were not very successful. Mostly due to them not having access to the type specimens, as the original authors' description are simply too brief. What is the time line for those various seed BE received? Do you think they are already being distributed as plants? I think the plants from John De Kanel, from Phu Kradung, are just one female clone, but I'm not sure about that... Dangerous Plants, my nursery used to sell them as "N. thorelii". |
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Post by sockhom on Aug 6, 2008 20:11:25 GMT -10
Hello mates , N. sp. Thailand I don't know what it is...if you give me those details we could find it out. Marcello The striped peristome and the fact that it's probably a highland would make it a new thing, if it's really from Thailand and not from Bokor Maybe François could tell us if there is any feature you can check on this plant to rule out N. bokor or not. Marcello Well, relying on what I can see on the virtual herbarium Dave Provided: www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dpevans/Nepenthes/N_sp_Thailand_A.htmand relying on Dave's notes about the indumentum: The pitcher are fuzzy to the touch. Densely pubescent, but the hairs are very short so as to be nearly invisible. The leaves are mostly glabrous. I would say that this species really looks like N. bokor. BUT, Dave, you have already asked me in private about this mystery plant a few months ago. I told you then that your sp. Thaïland's lid is too elongated to be N. bokor. ALL N. bokor specimens that I checked on Bokor Hill (more than 250) had apple shaped lid. www.lhnn.proboards107.com/index.cgi?board=list&action=display&thread=1094So we have several possibilities: - your plant is indeed N. bokor, the lid shape is variable (like for smilesii apparently) and N. bokor grows in Thaïland (wow !); - Your plant has in fact been collected in Cambodia. I have a report that N. bokor had been collected further in western Cambodia, not so far from the Thaï border. It might be a slightly different population? - Your plant is not N. bokor. That's something new, or a hybrid. Dave, could you provide us with a shot of the lid's shape? Where are the nectar glands? At the center, near the lid attachement (it is the case with N. bokor)? Do you have pictures of the flowers? François. |
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This is sending out a very fat root first, whilst my mirabilis germinates with very small leaves first. Viking seems to be leaves first like mirabilis.
which of these species were used 50 years ago to make these hybrids. Thank god I don't like hybrids so I just don't care 