Neps in North Sumatra

[wijaya]

Finally, I have the chance to visit the habitat and found:
N. tobaica - again
N. spectabilis
N. rigidifolia
N. pectinata
and their natural hybrids. Will upload the photos soon...

Ed

[wijaya]

The habitat visited is again the mountain region on approximately 2200 asl, the approximate day time temperature is around 25-26 degree Celsius and at night the temperature should drop to less than 20 degree Celsius. Was nice cloudy day without any sun with a bit of rains sporadically through out the trip and on one of the location the mist started to fall in in the middle of the day at around 12 noon.

Some views on the way to the habitat:














Now, warming up with neps that are still abundant and can be found through out the way and all the locations visited: N. tobaica





Zooming in the above picture: ;D


First location supposed to be meeting point of three species N. tobaica, N. spectabilis and N. rigidifolia, but due to over-exploiting by ‘human’ this habitat is badly destructed , no more true species of rigidifolia here - only found tobaica and a few adult plant of spectabilis that are already vining up the tree, This habitat is wet with not much light down to forest floor. Found lots of seedlings and some juvenile hybrids only of this three species. I presumed true species that used to thrive here was being plucked out of this habitat.

Habitat looks like this here:


Some of these pictures are taken of the floor area:














This particular hybrid proofed that once N. rigidifolia was here:











And is this one still a true species?




Some seedlings found around the area:




This upper I believe still a true species of N. spectabilis?


N. tobaica found vining up to the tree same location:


Some found on forest floor:




Vining on the tree some hybrids mixed with true species of N. spectabilis:

[rainforest]

I just can't imagine the thickness of the jungle there. It appears that after leaving the hybrids behind, we will see less and less true species making true species. This is what is happening with N. clipeata. With so few male and female plants in flower at the same time, the door for hybridization increases to where all of their seedlings are all hybrids.

Thank you for sharing these shots and we all look forward to seeing more shots.

Michael

[wijaya]

On the way to second location found some spectabilis vining on the tree by the roadside but inaccessible, these are zoom picture (about 100-200 meter away from road side):





A walk of few hundred meters up to the second location we found this rare species of N. rigidifolia. A mixed feeling of both happy :)and sad , so very happy to eventually seeing that this species still exist in the wild but sad to have to say that the habitat is also badly tampered by human, only few adult plants found on site, male plants vining up 5-6 meters up the tree to seek for more light as the habitat is in a dense forest with lots of big trees and other vegetations.
Scary first sight , dry up pitcher --- then we found out the plant was pull out of the ground and left dying there





Then the view of aerial pitchers of N. rigidifolia are hanging like fruits of the tree, one unforgettable sight and to take a closer picture with hand holding the pitcher I have to climb up the nearby tree, can imagine right?























I clicked so many times and seems like never enough just for one individual plant. ;D

Only three seedlings found on the floor near this mature plant:


This was the left over of the dry up male spike. I do hope there are still at least one female plant there, but no sign of that.



No other species found on this area, but few meters down the area we found some N. spectabilis and more N. tobaica:

[wijaya]

The third location was told once few years back the whole cliff was full covered by N. rigidifolia, but now only two juvenile plants found hanging there. These two are temporary safe as they are on few hundred meters up the cliff and unreachable.





This are the cropped picture, sorry the picture is not sharp as I am not using tele-lens:





These two locations of rigidifolia is showing very different habitat, one is inside the dark and wet forest and another open up full sun and dry rocky cliff. I do hope this particular species can still be found in other location, as was told by the guide these are the two location known so far with this species.

Then further up to the last location of the trip, still have sight of N. spectabilis by the roadside:

[wijaya]

To wrap up this trip we visited the last location to see N. pectinata – one strange and unbelievable species that grow completely covered with dry leafs, forest debris and moss. Have to really seek for them by unfolding the debris on the forest floor to uncover the reddish pitchers with only tiny leaf. The leaf that grow exposed don’t have any pitcher at all.

The habitat:




This one particular hybrid caught my attention as the pitcher color is very striking, a pectinata x spectabilis?







Some hybrid's seedlings:











More hybrids found:








N. pectinata:





























Living peacefully and neighboring with N. spectabilis and of course N. tobaica. We found one very different variant of spectabilis beside the ‘normal’ one, as the upper pitcher is very slim and long, with wide mouth and small peristome.

One of the slim variant, showing half open lid:




Normal one?:














Spectacularly slim, wide mouth and different pitcher coloration:
















Other N. spectabilis found here:














A few plants are blooming at the time:




N. tobaica also:




Bonus pictures of neps found scattered the very roadside:


Can you spot the neps? ;D


These are the closer view of the above picture:




Hope you all enjoy the story and pictures, sorry for some picture that are not that sharp as the location is quite harsh hence by climbing and walking already consuming lots of energy, so the hand is not that steady on some shots. He..he..

Ed

P.S.: Looking forward to more visiting of nep's habitat, I am becoming nepenthes habitatholic.

[longor]

excellent trip my friend!

very interesting location(s), it seems that a lot of the neps there are hybrid, even the spectabilis looks a little different. Photos of Rigidifolia uppers seems very small, was it found with Tobaica, if it is, its quite possibel that its a hybrid with tobaica too (not f1, but from way back), never been seen before, once again congratulations.

Cheers

[longor]

btw, that is one interesting pectinata, the one with elongated teeth, like fish bone , haven't seen one like that before

[sockhom]

Fantastic report Ed !
N. pectinata shots are really interesting and it's always a pleasure to see some rigidifolia pictures. I hope you will stumble onto new locations of this rare species.

François.

[wijaya]

I was having difficulty posting last nite, so some of the post are double, I have deleted the double/triple posting and fixed the whole thing, sorry about that.


Michael: Yes, the second location is growing inside the dense forest, with lots of big trees and tall shrubs, ferns, etc.. But on the last location we found N. pectinata, the location is quite an open space.

longor: Yes indeed, one memorable trip

Yes, found lots of hybrids, I presumed some might even be complex hybrids that had crossed down to several generations. But who knows?

Not sure on rigidifolia upper, not much seen of this species, I presumed this is still the true species, but again who knows, and tobaica also found but quite a distant away from this particular plant.

As for pectinata, this is pectinata rite? I presumed so, this one very interesting species pitchers rosetting just like amps, very striking coloration and nice teeth peristome.

sockhom: thanks, yes this pectinata will be one nice species for terrarium too bad no seeds found.

Ed

[kltower]

Wijaya,

With those teeth, your "pectinata" looks more like the Sumatra "LG" longor showed sometime ago in thread:

pitcherplants.proboards34.com/index.cgi?board=nepwild&action=display&thread=3760

Choong

[vraev]

Fantastic report. Thanks sooo much for posting this. I love to see reports of neps in the wild. Always makes me wonder how REAL neps grow. THe wimpy ones we grow in pots under lights are not even close to their wild counterparts which indeed face the elements to survive.

[wijaya]

kltower: Yup, teeth looks similar but leaf shape is quite different and I browsed back to "Adrian posting on pitcherplants.proboards34.com/index.cgi?board=nepwild&action=display&thread=3672", only coloration is different as for leaf shapes are same. But not sure, probably just some variants of this species.

vraev, thanks for the compliment, nature always does wonder, we as human trying to copy from nature to provide the best for our neps.

Ed