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More on Nepenthes
My copy of "The Savage Garden" arrived today. I've spent a few hours this evening going over the Nepenthes chapter and looking at tons of photos online trying to identify my plant. A few posts back a comment was made that my plant might be a highland plant and I think that assessment was right. Having looked around a bit I'm taking a guess that my plant might be a Nepenthes alata hybrid. Apparently the alata is a popular plant and one of the easier species to grow indoors on a windowsill. It would seem to me that I would have most likely come across a common and easy type rather than a rare and difficult one in the way that I did. Having looked at countless photos of pitchers, mine seems to most closely resemble an alata. It is kind of difficult to determine because some alatas are spotted, but generally they are considered to be plain, with a slim waist and a bulbous bottom. I was taken aback a bit when I read the line about it being plain. I can hardly imagine something so amazing and unreal being described as 'plain', but I've looked at enough photos of crazy, insane pitchers tonight to agree that by comparison mine is more on the plain side. But it is still crazy.
Here are a few photos of the alata that I think closely resemble my own plant. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Here are some interesting facts I have learned from "The Savage Garden":
There are highland nepenthes species and lowland nepenthes species. It is important to know which group yours belongs to because the temperature requirements are slightly different.
Nepenthes have been known to "eat" large rodents such as rats. In "The Savage Garden", the author relates a story told by a couple who went on tour of a botanical garden in Malaysia and saw a park attendant removing dead (and alive) baby monkeys form the traps of large Nepenthes that were hanging in the trees. He insists that there is nothing to substantiate such a claim.
Nepenthes grow two types of pitchers on each plant -- an upper pitcher and a lower pitcher. The two pitcher types are radically different in appearance. The lower pitcher is usually short and squat. So that tiny pitcher I found growing near the soil wasn't a "baby pitcher" but a lower pitcher.
Nepenthes were named after the drug "Nepenthe" that Helen of Troy put in soldiers' flasks of wine in Homer's The Odessy.
And now for some photos of some truly odd Nepenthes species. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
posted at 10:31 PM
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