N. smilesii - is it official

[Dave Evans]

Hello Sockhom,

My photos of the lids didn't turn out well. But, there is a line of large nectar glands in a line from the base of the lid to about 3/4 to the end of the lid they are mostly in the middle and get smaller and fewer toward the sides. I will review the plant some more tomorrow and provide more details. The way the leaves grow, it looks just like "N. bokor", also very similar in coloration.

It has not flowered for me, but it has flowered in years past for Henning, and the plant is female. At least that is what the tag says

I noticed a lot of variation in the lower pitchers in your photo essay and that was just in one population...

[Marcello Catalano]

I completely agree with François in his thoughts and proceeding, I saw that peristome and the highalnd behaviour and I suspected N. bokor...
If we can know from the original owner as much as we can about its origin we could find out something exceptional!
There are tens of mountains in Thailand that I couldn't explore just because it takes too long, so I used to ask and make research at the main reception only. But they are open national parks, so it's very likely that a normal tourist could go there and find these plants accidentally, without that no one from our community ever knew. Especially if this tourist is thai!!!
François, no need to say that you should RUN to find out WHERE this other western population of N. bokor is!!
Marcello

[sockhom]

Aug 6, 2008 23:24:38 GMT -10 Marcello Catalano said:

François, no need to say that you should RUN to find out WHERE this other western population of N. bokor is!!
Marcello

About another trip in ol' Indochina:

My wife says: "Ok, but be careful".
My children say: "Nooo, not again, Daddy"!!

Mmmhhh... What should I do? ;D (Nepenthesnepenthesnepenthesnepenthes... ;D)


François.

[Dave Evans]

Okay, before any starts running somewhere; we should at least try to get some more information from Henning... However, he has left the CP hobby for the most part to pursue a new career in wildlife photography.

I'll contact you guys off through email with his contact info, I don't know if it is good anymore...

Taking a good look, reviewing my mystery plant: It has straight, white hairs on the top of the leaves--these hair lay down on the leave surface, they are densest on and near the mid rib. It also has hairs on the bottom of the leaves, these stick straight out, perpendicular to the bottom of the leaf surfaces, these are shorter than the hairs on the top of the leave.

The tendrils are hairy too, but these hairs are shorter, denser and "fuzzier". The pitchers are densely covered in very short hairs; the top of the lids and all other outside surfaces of the pitchers.

The under surface of lids have large nectar glands along the mid line and smaller gland all over the rest of the lid. They start at the base but don't quite make it to the end of the lid. The large glands in the middle produce so much that it forms gobs of nectar, they join together and start hanging downward, thick like honey.

[Marcello Catalano]

"Taking a good look, reviewing my mystery plant: It has straight, white hairs on the top of the leaves--these hair lay down on the leave surface, they are densest on and near the mid rib. It also has hairs on the bottom of the leaves, these stick straight out, perpendicular to the bottom of the leaf surfaces, these are shorter than the hairs on the top of the leave."

ooooh....youpi...now, that's useful and interesting! see how peculiar the indumentum is for these species and how helpful it can be to distinguish them!

Dave, you say that the hair on the top of the leaf lay down...can you look closer with a lens, move one of those hairs with a small toothstick and make sure it's actually hair and not a hair-like sign on the leaf? I've seen some of these species (kampotiana too) that have these hairs but when you look closer you realize they're just "painted" on the leaf, they're not real hair, they don't move if you touch them with a little stick. Check the leaf of these kampotiana:
www.marcellocatalano.com/mie.htm
Well, that leaf is completely glabrous, excluding tendril and pitcher

Now, I know a new thai species that has a very peculiar indumentum: glabrous on the top of the leaf, excluding the mid line which is hairy, and hairy on the whole underside of the leaf. It's from about 400-600 m altitude, and plus, it grows in a very touristic national park. But I always saw it in very bad conditions, no pitchers at all, so it's hard to say... Can you check again?

If only François could remember exactly how bokor's indumentum is...we could already shout "new species! new species!"...

Maybe that's already in cultivation around the world, you know, maybe it's one of the famous tiger, giant etc....so actually the real great discovery would be knowing where it comes from, that would be the real great news, but I don't have many hopes for that, I think we'll have the usual "I bought it at chatuchak, the man told me it was from a mountain" etc...sob

[sockhom]

Aug 7, 2008 12:23:45 GMT -10 Marcello Catalano said:

If only François could remember exactly how bokor's indumentum is...we could already shout "new species! new species!"...

Sadly, I can't give an indumentum description as accurate as Dave made on his own mysterious plant.
N. bokor is not glabrous. It has very short hairs on the stem, the tendrils,the leaves and sometimes the margins. I don't remember about the pitchers themselves, though.

Just check these pictures (the last ones):

www.lhnn.proboards107.com/index.cgi?board=list&action=display&thread=1094

François.

[sulud1]

Hi,
The weather here is finally great so I took some pics of different N. smilesii colorations.