4 new species from Thailand

[marcellocatalano]

To be precise, it's 4 new species and 1 new variety. I just produced the ITALIAN version of my new book: "Nepenthes della Thailandia". The result of my research, started in 2004. I used it to publish 5 new taxa. They are:

N. kerrii: it has never been in cultivation until recently, when it was introduced through western nurseries labelled as sp. Trang (from MacPherson's book) or sp. Satun. It's closely related to N. kongkandana (Songkhla province). It grows in the Tarutao marine park, in the Satun province. It has actually nothing to do with Trang, but I asked Stewart to use the name of another province to better keep the secret around the true location. My friend Trong, following my request, went back to the horrible place where this species grows, just to do the measurings and take the photos for its publication, so he was with great merit included among the authors.

N. suratensis: closely related to N. andamana, it grows in the Suratthani province and it was spread in cultivation by Thai growers as N. "tiger Surat". Fortunately, considering the wild populations and what was introduced in cultivation, it never seems to produce hybrids with N. mirabilis, so the plants you bought with that name are the real thing.

N. chang: from the mountains of Ko Chang up to the Banthad chain, in the Trat province. It has never been in cultivation but the seeds sent to western nurseries are germinating in these days. It's closely related to N. kampotiana (coastal Trat province).

The descriptions of these new species, together with the present situation of the Indochinese Nepenthes flora, can be found here:

www.marcellocatalano.com/indochina.html

The var. globosa has been reviewed by Charles Clarke, the other descriptions have been reviewed by Alastair Robinson. The Latin translations were made by Jan Schlauer (var. globosa) and Andreas Fleischmann (the 4 species).
If one day the DNA will prove me wrong, or if the lumpers don't agree with my work, then N. kongkandana/kerrii can be considered one species, and the same goes for N. andamana/suratensis and N. kampotiana/chang. I say this to prevent funny theories like all of them being N. kampotiana, or N. andamana being N. bokorensis or a hybrid N. gracilis x kongkandana etc. Ah, and by the way, the var. globosa might then be a new species or just a form of N. mirabilis.

The var. globosa (I remind you that the term "globosa" was originally proposed for this plant by Shigeo Kurata) was supposed to be published on the CPN, but later on I found myself with the possibility of publishing all of them together and much sooner with my book, and I went for it. My apologies to Jan Schlauer and Barry Rice, the CPN co-editors, who were so helpful, but I'm pretty sure that they are happy anyway, seeing 5 brand new taxa taking the field.

About conservation in the wild, we just started working on it.