Nepenthes thorelii paper

[Sockhom]

Hello,
Here is one of my last papers. It is an account on N. thorelii . It summarizes all our current knowledge on this enigmatic species. It has been published in the appendix of Stewart McPherson's last book.
http://www.carnivorousplants.it/thorelii.history.pdf
Cheers,
François.

[NepNut]

Thanks François for your contibutions... but I really hope this won't be your "last" ever paper on Nepenthes... Good work !!

[tanphobia]

Does the phrase "not hipped" refer to having no "shoulders"? I just wonder

[marcellocatalano]

Yes, that part of the pitcher is called hip, and it seems that while some species have a stable hip in the middle or lower part of the pitcher, some others have a hip that can be in the middle or along the whole upper part and even absent, that giving a rounder shape to the pitcher.
A curious thing that I would like to understand more, is that "mirror" species like andamana-suratensis, kerrii-kongkandana, mirabilis-var.globosa and probably others seem to split one from the other by using that feature, I don't know why.
Plants of var. globosa have been classified in grades depending on where the hip is, but that's a horticultural thing, as "the upper goes the hip and the better the pitcher looks" It has nothing to do with taxonomy, as in the wild you can find var. globosa plants with hip in all positions, randomly going from the middle to absent.

[tanphobia]

It's funny that one of my nepenthes named as "thorelii" has globose shape like the one in the picture (in the pdf), except that my plant is slightly hipped
The whole plant

The pitcher

[marcellocatalano]

Hi Tan, nice plant Well, N. kampotiana also has round pitchers and it grows in southern Vietnam. It's much more common in cultivation and of course it's sold as "thorelii". But it's glabrous, while N. thorelii is hairy. At the bottom of this page you can find a table to distinguish all the Indochinese species: http://www.carnivorousplants.it/desc.holdenii.pdf
If your plant is hairy, congratulations, it's probably one of the poached plants that has been put for sale in your Country. Actually, even if it's kampotiana, I can see a massive rootstock at the base of your plant, and that makes me think that it has been poached from the wild anyway...

[NepNut]

Hey tanphobia,
Good to have you in Petpitcher. I have to say your nep is an interesting specimen. Do you have more, mind share more detailed pics of the leaves, stems and pitchers?? Thankyou.

François and Cello,
So is this possibly a N. thorelii ??

[marcellocatalano]

Well, it's a young specimen, so the leaves and structure of the plant are not very clear, and a kampotiana with red pitchers looks exactely like that and it's quite common. The only difference is in the indumentum. If you have a hairy plant from Vienam that looks like that, yes, you probably have a N. thorelii.

[tanphobia]

I took the picture of the leaves this morning and the funny thing is that there are hair on the leaves but they don't stick out, as if they are glued to the leaves. Here are the pictures. Sorry if it's blurry





So, what do you think ?

[kevyn chan]

hmm....i think at last we get to see the holy grail of N. thorelli 'live'!!!