Nepenthes mapuluensis
Encyclopedia
Nepenthes mapuluensis the Mapulu Pitcher-Plant, is a species of tropical pitcher plant
native to East Kalimantan
, Borneo
. It is known only from a restricted geographical range and is listed as Near Threatened
on the 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
.
Nepenthes mapuluensis has no known natural hybrids. No infraspecific taxa have been described.
by A.J.G. 'Doc' Kostermans
, the head of the Botanical Division of the Forestry Research Institute at Bogor
, on the same expedition in which he collected the type material of N. campanulata
. The species was described in 1990 by J. H. Adam
and C. C. Wilcock
based on a single duplicate collection in the Leiden and Bogor
herbaria, designated as Kostermans 14017.
s are cylindrical and up to 4 cm long. The leaves are coriaceous. The lamina is oblanceolate-linear in morphology, up to 26 cm long, and 5 cm wide. The apex of the lamina is acute, while the base is attenuate, sub-petiolate
, and semi-amplexicaul. Tendril
s grow to 50 cm in length.
The pitchers of N. mapuluensis are ellipsoidal in shape. They grow to 21 cm in height and 8.5 cm in diameter. The pitchers possess two fringed wings up to 10 mm wide. The peristome
of this species is moderately developed and is folded or wavy as in the closely related N. northiana
. The peristome may be up to 12 mm wide and bears a row of distinct, but not pronounced, teeth. Aerial or upper pitchers may be infundibular throughout, but are often cylindrical and relatively small. They bear reduced fringed wings or ribs.
Nepenthes mapuluensis has a racemose
inflorescence
. The peduncle
is up to 7 cm long. The size of the rachis
is unknown. Pedicels grow to 8 mm in length. A study of 120 pollen
samples taken from the type specimen (Kostermans 14017) found the mean pollen diameter to be 28.9 μm
(SE
= 0.5; CV
= 9.2%).
The species is mostly glabrous, although certain parts of the plant, such as the pitchers, may have a scattered indumentum
of short hairs.
. More recently, however, further observations of N. mapuluensis have been made by Troy Davis, Joachim Nerz
and Andreas Wistuba
, significantly expanding the known range of this species. This being the case, N. mapuluensis is thought to be endemic
to the Sambaliung mountain range in East Kalimantan
.
Nepenthes mapuluensis is restricted to limestone
substrate
s and grows in stunted vegetation on low summit ridges, which are often extremely inaccessible. It has been recorded from elevations of between 700 and 800 m.
and there is some question as to the validity of its species status. Although there are few morphological characters separating these two taxa
, there seem to be several stable differences that can be used to distinguish between them. Compared to N. northiana, the leaves on the climbing stems of N. mapuluensis are more linear, the pitchers darker in colour, and the upper pitchers narrower. It is also worth noting that N. northiana is known only from the Bau
area of Sarawak
, which lies several hundred kilometres away from the only known populations of N. mapuluensis.
to produce the hybrid Nepenthes × mapulucosa Hort.Westphal in sched. (2000), although this name is a nomen nudum
.
Pitcher plant
Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants whose prey-trapping mechanism features a deep cavity filled with liquid known as a pitfall trap. It has been widely assumed that the various sorts of pitfall trap evolved from rolled leaves, with selection pressure favouring more deeply cupped leaves over...
native to East Kalimantan
East Kalimantan
East Kalimantan is the second largest Indonesian province, located on the Kalimantan region on the east of Borneo island. The resource-rich province has two major cities, Samarinda and Balikpapan...
, Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
. It is known only from a restricted geographical range and is listed as Near Threatened
Near Threatened
Near Threatened is a conservation status assigned to species or lower taxa that may be considered threatened with extinction in the near future, although it does not currently qualify for the threatened status...
on the 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
IUCN Red List
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...
.
Nepenthes mapuluensis has no known natural hybrids. No infraspecific taxa have been described.
Botanical history
Nepenthes mapuluensis was first collected in 1957 on Mount Ilas MapuluMount Ilas Mapulu
Mount Ilas Mapulu is a limestone mountain near Berau, East Kalimantan, Borneo. It is the type locality of the pitcher plant species Nepenthes mapuluensis, which is named after it....
by A.J.G. 'Doc' Kostermans
André Joseph Guillaume Henri Kostermans
Dr. André Joseph Guillaume Henri 'Doc' Kostermans was a botanist. He was born in Purworejo, Java, Dutch East Indies, and educated at Utrecht University, taking his doctoral degree in 1936 with a paper on Surinamese Lauraceae.He spent most of his professional life studying the plants of...
, the head of the Botanical Division of the Forestry Research Institute at Bogor
Bogor
Bogor is a city on the island of Java in the West Java province of Indonesia. The city is located in the center of the Bogor Regency , 60 kilometers south of the Indonesian capital Jakarta...
, on the same expedition in which he collected the type material of N. campanulata
Nepenthes campanulata
Nepenthes campanulata , the Bell-Shaped Pitcher-Plant, is a tropical pitcher plant endemic to Borneo.Forest fires destroyed the only known population of N. campanulata in 1983 and it was uncertain whether the species had survived elsewhere or was in fact extinct. It was rediscovered in 1997,...
. The species was described in 1990 by J. H. Adam
J. H. Adam
Jumaat Haji Adam is a botanist and taxonomist specialising in the carnivorous pitcher plant genus Nepenthes.Adam has described numerous Nepenthes taxa, mostly with C. C. Wilcock, including the species N. faizaliana and N. mapuluensis, as well as the natural hybrids N. × alisaputrana, N. ×...
and C. C. Wilcock
C. C. Wilcock
Christopher C. Wilcock is a taxonomist specialising in the carnivorous pitcher plant genus Nepenthes.Together with J. H. Adam, Wilcock has described several Nepenthes taxa, including the species N. faizaliana and N. mapuluensis, as well as the natural hybrids N. × alisaputrana and N. ×...
based on a single duplicate collection in the Leiden and Bogor
Bogor
Bogor is a city on the island of Java in the West Java province of Indonesia. The city is located in the center of the Bogor Regency , 60 kilometers south of the Indonesian capital Jakarta...
herbaria, designated as Kostermans 14017.
Description
The stem of N. mapuluensis can measure up to 6 mm in diameter, but the maximum length is unknown. InternodePlant stem
A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant. The stem is normally divided into nodes and internodes, the nodes hold buds which grow into one or more leaves, inflorescence , conifer cones, roots, other stems etc. The internodes distance one node from another...
s are cylindrical and up to 4 cm long. The leaves are coriaceous. The lamina is oblanceolate-linear in morphology, up to 26 cm long, and 5 cm wide. The apex of the lamina is acute, while the base is attenuate, sub-petiolate
Petiole (botany)
In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile, or clasping when they partly surround the...
, and semi-amplexicaul. Tendril
Tendril
In botany, a tendril is a specialized stem, leaf or petiole with a threadlike shape that is used by climbing plants for support, attachment and cellular invasion by parasitic plants, generally by twining around suitable hosts. They do not have a lamina or blade, but they can photosynthesize...
s grow to 50 cm in length.
The pitchers of N. mapuluensis are ellipsoidal in shape. They grow to 21 cm in height and 8.5 cm in diameter. The pitchers possess two fringed wings up to 10 mm wide. The peristome
Peristome
The word peristome is derived from the Greek peri, meaning 'around' or 'about', and stoma, 'mouth'. It is a term used to describe various anatomical features that surround an opening to an organ or structure. The term is used in plants and invertebrate animals, such as in describing the shells of...
of this species is moderately developed and is folded or wavy as in the closely related N. northiana
Nepenthes northiana
Nepenthes northiana , or Miss North's Pitcher-Plant, is a tropical pitcher plant endemic to Borneo, where it grows at elevations ranging from 0 to 500 m above sea level. The specific epithet northiana honours Marianne North, who first illustrated the species...
. The peristome may be up to 12 mm wide and bears a row of distinct, but not pronounced, teeth. Aerial or upper pitchers may be infundibular throughout, but are often cylindrical and relatively small. They bear reduced fringed wings or ribs.
Nepenthes mapuluensis has a racemose
Raceme
A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...
inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...
. The peduncle
Peduncle (botany)
In botany, a peduncle is a stem supporting an inflorescence, or after fecundation, an infructescence.The peduncle is a stem, usually green and without leaves, though sometimes colored or supporting small leaves...
is up to 7 cm long. The size of the rachis
Rachis
Rachis is a biological term for a main axis or "shaft".-In zoology:In vertebrates a rachis can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this case the rachis usually form the supporting axis of the body and is then called the spine or vertebral column...
is unknown. Pedicels grow to 8 mm in length. A study of 120 pollen
Pollen
Pollen is a fine to coarse powder containing the microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce the male gametes . Pollen grains have a hard coat that protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement from the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants or from the male cone to the...
samples taken from the type specimen (Kostermans 14017) found the mean pollen diameter to be 28.9 μm
Micrometre
A micrometer , is by definition 1×10-6 of a meter .In plain English, it means one-millionth of a meter . Its unit symbol in the International System of Units is μm...
(SE
Standard error (statistics)
The standard error is the standard deviation of the sampling distribution of a statistic. The term may also be used to refer to an estimate of that standard deviation, derived from a particular sample used to compute the estimate....
= 0.5; CV
Coefficient of variation
In probability theory and statistics, the coefficient of variation is a normalized measure of dispersion of a probability distribution. It is also known as unitized risk or the variation coefficient. The absolute value of the CV is sometimes known as relative standard deviation , which is...
= 9.2%).
The species is mostly glabrous, although certain parts of the plant, such as the pitchers, may have a scattered indumentum
Indumentum
The indumentum is a covering of fine hairs or bristles on a plant or insect.In plants, the indumentum types are:*pubescent*hirsute*pilose*villous*tomentose*stellate*scabrous*scurfy...
of short hairs.
Ecology
The type locality of N. mapuluensis is described on the original collector's label, which reads: "the species is common on the limestone mountain of Ilas Mapulu at an altitude of 800 m". The population from which the type specimen originated was subsequently destroyed and for some time the species was thought to be extinctExtinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
. More recently, however, further observations of N. mapuluensis have been made by Troy Davis, Joachim Nerz
Joachim Nerz
Dr. Joachim Nerz is a taxonomist and botanist specialising in the carnivorous plant genera Heliamphora and Nepenthes. Nerz has described several new species, mostly with Andreas Wistuba.-Publications:...
and Andreas Wistuba
Andreas Wistuba
Dr. Andreas Wistuba is a German taxonomist and botanist specialising in the carnivorous plant genera Heliamphora and Nepenthes. More than half of all known Heliamphora species have been described by Wistuba.-Publications:...
, significantly expanding the known range of this species. This being the case, N. mapuluensis is thought to be endemic
Endemic (ecology)
Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, all species of lemur are endemic to the...
to the Sambaliung mountain range in East Kalimantan
East Kalimantan
East Kalimantan is the second largest Indonesian province, located on the Kalimantan region on the east of Borneo island. The resource-rich province has two major cities, Samarinda and Balikpapan...
.
Nepenthes mapuluensis is restricted to limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
substrate
Substrate (biology)
In biology a substrate is the surface a plant or animal lives upon and grows on. A substrate can include biotic or abiotic materials and animals. For example, encrusting algae that lives on a rock can be substrate for another animal that lives on top of the algae. See also substrate .-External...
s and grows in stunted vegetation on low summit ridges, which are often extremely inaccessible. It has been recorded from elevations of between 700 and 800 m.
Related species
Nepenthes mapuluensis is very similar to N. northianaNepenthes northiana
Nepenthes northiana , or Miss North's Pitcher-Plant, is a tropical pitcher plant endemic to Borneo, where it grows at elevations ranging from 0 to 500 m above sea level. The specific epithet northiana honours Marianne North, who first illustrated the species...
and there is some question as to the validity of its species status. Although there are few morphological characters separating these two taxa
Taxon
|thumb|270px|[[African elephants]] form a widely-accepted taxon, the [[genus]] LoxodontaA taxon is a group of organisms, which a taxonomist adjudges to be a unit. Usually a taxon is given a name and a rank, although neither is a requirement...
, there seem to be several stable differences that can be used to distinguish between them. Compared to N. northiana, the leaves on the climbing stems of N. mapuluensis are more linear, the pitchers darker in colour, and the upper pitchers narrower. It is also worth noting that N. northiana is known only from the Bau
Bau, Sarawak
Bau is a gold mining town in the Kuching Division of Sarawak, Malaysia. Smuggling with Kalimantan is also important to the local economy.-History:...
area of Sarawak
Sarawak
Sarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...
, which lies several hundred kilometres away from the only known populations of N. mapuluensis.
Cultivation
Nepenthes mapuluensis is extremely rare in cultivation. It has been artificially crossed with N. ventricosaNepenthes ventricosa
Nepenthes ventricosa is a tropical pitcher plant endemic to the Philippines, where it is a highland species, growing at an elevation of 1000–2000 m above sea level. It has been recorded from the islands of Luzon, Panay, and Sibuyan...
to produce the hybrid Nepenthes × mapulucosa Hort.Westphal in sched. (2000), although this name is a nomen nudum
Nomen nudum
The phrase nomen nudum is a Latin term, meaning "naked name", used in taxonomy...
.
