Nepenthes burbidgeae

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Nepenthes burbidgeae

Young plant of N. burbidgeae. Mount Kinabalu, Borneo.

Conservation status

Endangered (IUCN)

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Caryophyllales
Family:	Nepenthaceae
Genus:	Nepenthes
Species:	N. burbidgeae

Binomial name

Nepenthes burbidgeae
Hook.f. ex Burb. (1882)

Distribution of N. burbidgeae.

Synonyms

Nepenthes burbidgei
Hook.f. ex Burb. (1894) sphalm.typogr.
Nepenthes phyllamphora
auct. non Willd.: Stapf (1894)
?Nepenthes pilosa
Danser (1928)

Nepenthes burbidgeae (after Frederick William Burbidge's wife) is a highland Nepenthes species with a patchy distribution around Mount Kinabalu. It can often be found growing with colonies of N. rajah, N. edwardsiana and N. tentaculata, and hybrids with all these species have been recorded. The plant produces beautifully coloured pitchers up to 20 cm in length.^[1]

No forms or varieties of N. burbidgeae have been described.^[1]

[edit] Discovery and naming

N. burbidgeae was first discovered by Hugh Low and Spenser St. John in 1858. St. John wrote the following account of finding the species near Marai Parai:^[2]^[3]

Crossing the Hobang, a steep climb led us to the western spur, along which our path lay; here, at about 4000 ft, Mr. Low found a beautiful white and spotted pitcher-plant which he considered the prettiest of the twenty-two species of Nepenthes with which he was then acquainted; the pitchers are white and covered in a most beautiful manner with spots of an irregular form, of a rosy pink colour.

Frederick William Burbidge was one of the first to collect the plant in 1878 and later introduced it into cultivation.^[3]

Joseph Dalton Hooker named N. burbidgeae after Burbidge's wife, though it only appeared in an unpublished manuscript. The specific epithet is attributed to Burbidge as he used it in a letter to The Gardeners' Chronicle in 1882. It read:^[4]^[3]

Nepenthes burbidgeae, Hook.f. MSS, is a lovely thing, as yet unintroduced: pitchers pure white, semi-translucent like egg-shell, porcelain-white, with crimson or blood-tinted blotches. Lid blotched and dotted with crimson-purple. It is a very distinct plant, with triangular stems, 50 ft long, and the margins of the leaves decurrent.

[edit] Natural hybrids

N. burbidgeae × N. edwardsiana
N. burbidgeae × N. fusca
N. burbidgeae × N. rajah [=N. × alisaputrana]
N. burbidgeae × N. tentaculata

Nepenthes burbidgeae × Nepenthes fusca

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Clarke, C.M. 1997. Nepenthes of Borneo. Natural History Publications (Borneo), Kota Kinabalu.
^ St. John, S. 1862. Life in the forests of the Far East. 2 vols. Smith Elder & Co., London. [Reprinted in 1974 by Oxford University Press]
^ ^a ^b ^c Phillipps, A. & A. Lamb 1996. Pitcher Plants of Borneo. Natural History Publications (Borneo), Kota Kinabalu.
^ Burbidge, F.W. 1882. Notes on the New Nepenthes. The Gardeners' Chronicle Vol. XVII: 56.

Schnell, D., Catling, P., Folkerts, G., Frost, C., Gardner, R., et al. (2000). Nepenthes burbidgeae. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Listed as Endangered (EN B1+2c v2.3).