16 March 08: Pics from my trip to Langkawi, Malaysia

[David]

capslock
Location: San Francisco, CA
Pics from my trip to Langkawi, Malaysia
« Thread Started on Mar 16, 2008, 8:03am »

Greetings,
Here are pics from my recent trip to Langkawi, Malaysia! I found a guide who knew where they grew high in the mountains here. I cannot identify the species, as from what I understand the only ones that are supposed to grow here are N. gracilis, N. mirabilis, and N. smilesii.

Here are the mountains the plants inhabit (only at the very tops). To protect the location, I will not say which peak had them, but they are not accessible by any trail, and require an all-day, extremely strenuous hike straight through the brush.
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Here's a look, at the very beginning of the hike, up a small stream that marked the end of the very short trail to a swimming hole:
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OK, enough setup, let's get to the plants! It's strange, there are no nepenthes whatsoever, then all of the sudden, they're all over the place. It looks like there are two kinds, but I'm not convinced that some aren't just uppers and some lowers (the redder ones). They never appeared on one plant together, and some had red stems, and some green, but still - the green ones all look like uppers, and the reds all like lowers. In any case, here they all are - and these pics all were taken within 20 feet of eachother:

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(continued...) « Last Edit: Mar 16, 2008, 8:04am by capslock »Link to Post - Back to Top 69.181.70.94My photos are public domain.capslock
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Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 5
Location: San Francisco, CA
Re: Pics from my trip to Langkawi, Malaysia
« Reply #1 on Mar 16, 2008, 8:04am » And some whole plant/context pics:
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Here's one that looked to be growing right out of a tree trunk:
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This was the end of the dry season in Langkawi, and the ground was VERY dry. The soil was relatively dense clay/sand in texture, and again, very dry. Not what you'd expect nepenthes to be growing in. There weren't many pitchers, which is reasonable given the season, and a lot of brown vine and dead pitchers. The plants all had a scrambling growth habit. The weather was hot/humid, as it always is here, I'd guess about 84 degrees. It does cool down at night up here, apparently, and my guide reported he cannot grow these down at sea level where he has N. mirabilis growing wild on his farm.

Any ideas on what these are?

Max


bucky78
Location: Tennessee, USA
Re: Pics from my trip to Langkawi, Malaysia
« Reply #2 on Mar 16, 2008, 8:58am »

Wonderful pics. Thanks for sharing. It is always nice to see Neps in their natural habitat since I probably will never get to see them in person.


David
Location: Kuala Lumpur
Re: Pics from my trip to Langkawi, Malaysia
« Reply #3 on Mar 19, 2008, 9:39am »

Thanks capslock for the pictures of your journey. Could this be N. smilesii like what C'hien Lee said in Lisham's thread? It does not look like any other neps I've seen in Peninsular Malaysia. I like the red pitchers.