Nepenthes edwardsiana , or the splendid pitcher-plant,Phillipps, A. & A. Lamb 1996. Pitcher-Plants of Borneo. Natural History Publications (Borneo), Kota Kinabalu. is a carnivorous tropical pitcher plant endemic to Mount Kinabalu and neighbouring Mount Tambuyukon in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. It is considered one of the most spectacular of all Nepenthes, producing some of the largest pitchers and the most highly developed peristome ribs of any species in the genus.Clarke, C.M. 1997. Nepenthes of Borneo. Natural History Publications (Borneo), Kota Kinabalu.
Botanical history The type specimen of N. edwardsiana was collected on Mount Kinabalu in 1858 by Hugh Low and Spenser St. John.Turnbull, J. & A. Middleton 1984. Tedious Trudge Through the Torturous Turmoils of Taxonomy. Carnivorous Plant Newsletter 13(3): 61–67. Designated as Low s.n., the specimen is deposited at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.Schlauer, J. 2006. Nepenthes edwardsiana . Carnivorous Plant Database.
Nepenthes edwardsiana was formally described in 1859 by Joseph Dalton Hooker. Hooker named the species after George Edwardes, Governor of the Crown Colony of Labuan, at the request of his friend Hugh Low. Hooker's original description and illustration were reproduced in Spenser St. John's Life in the Forests of the Far East, published in 1862.St. John, S. 1862. Life in the Forests of the Far East; or, Travels in northern Borneo. 2 volumes. London: Smith, Elder & Co. St. John wrote the following account of N. edwardsiana on Mount Kinabalu:
As we ascended, we left the brushwood and entered a tangled jungle, in which few of the trees were large. The spur of the mountain became very narrow, sometimes not much wider than the path, and was greatly encumbered at one part by the twining stems of the Nepenthes Edwardsiana. This handsome plant was not, however, much diffused along the spur, but confined to a space about a quarter of a mile in length, and climbed upon the trees around, with its fine pitchers hanging from all the lower boughs. We measured one plant and it was twenty feet in length, quite smooth, and the leaves of a very acute shape at both ends. It is a long, cylindrical, finely-frilled pitcher, growing on every leaf; one we picked measured twenty-one inches and a half long, by two and a half in breadth. They swell out a little towards the base, which is bright pea green, the rest of the cylinder being of a brilliant brick-red colour. Its mouth is nearly circular, the border surrounding it being finely formed of thin plates about a sixth of an inch apart, and about the same in height, and both of a flesh colour; the handsome lid is of a circular shape. The dried specimen forwarded to Dr. Hooker only measured eighteen inches. The plant is epiphytal, growing on casuarinas (species nova). The pitchers of the young creepers precisely resemble those of the older ones, except in size.
Alfred Russel Wallace made brief mention of N. edwardsiana in his famous work The Malay Archipelago, first published in 1869: "Another, Nepenthes Edwardsiania, has a narrow pitcher twenty inches long; while the plant itself grows to a length of twenty feet".Wallace, A.R. 1869. The Malay Archipelago, Volume I. Macmillan, London.
In subsequent years, N. edwardsiana was featured in a number of publications by eminent botanists such as Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel (1870),Miquel, F.A.G. 1870. Nepenthes. Illustrations de la flore l'Archipel Indien 1: 1–48. Joseph Dalton Hooker (1873), Hooker, J.D. 1873. Ordo CLXXV bis. Nepenthaceæ. In: A. de Candolle Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis 17: 90–105. Frederick William Burbidge (1882, 1897),Burbidge, F.W. 1882. Notes on the new Nepenthes. The Gardeners' Chronicle, new series, 17(420): 56.Burbidge, F.W. 1897. Note on Nepenthes. Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 21(2): 256–262. Odoardo Beccari (1886),Beccari, O. 1886. Rivista delle specie del genere Nepenthes. Malesia 3: 1–15. William E. Dixon (1888),Dixon, W.E. 1888. Nepenthes notes. The Gardeners' Chronicle 3(1): 170. Ernst Wunschmann (1891),Wunschmann, E. 1891. Nepenthaceae. In: A. Engler & K. Prantl. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 3(2): 253–260. Otto Stapf (1894),Stapf, O. 1894. On the flora of Mount Kinabalu, in North Borneo. The Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 4: 96–263. Harry James Veitch (1897),Veitch, H.J. 1897. Nepenthes. Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 21(2): 226–255. Jacob Gijsbert Boerlage (1900),Boerlage, J.G. 1900. Nepenthes. In: Handleiding tot de kennis der flora van Nederlandsch Indië, Volume 3, Part 1. pp. 53–54. William Botting Hemsley (1905),Hemsley, W.B. 1905. The pitchers of Nepenthes. The Gardeners' Chronicle 27(1): 241–242 & 260. and Elmer Drew Merrill (1921).Merrill, E.D. 1921. A bibliographic enumeration of Bornean plants. Journal of the Straits branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, special number. pp. 281–295.
However, most of these publications made only passing mention of N. edwardsiana. The first work to include significant taxonomic revisions was that of Günther Beck von Mannagetta und Lerchenau in 1895, "Die Gattung Nepenthes". Beck was the first to unite N. edwardsiana and N. villosa, considering the former a variety or form of the latter. He also published the name Nepenthes edgeworthii based on a specimen collected in Borneo by Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach. The specimen, Herb.Reichenbach s.n., is deposited at the University of Vienna herbarium (WU). Beck, like all subsequent authors, considered N. edgeworthii to be conspecific with N. edwardsiana.
Nepenthes edwardsiana was formally reinstated as a valid species in John Muirhead Macfarlane's 1908 monograph, which included a revised description and illustration of the species.Macfarlane, J.M. 1908. Nepenthaceae. In: A. Engler. Das Pflanzenreich IV, III, Heft 36: 1–91. Macfarlane also wrote about N. edwardsiana in the Journal of the Linnean Society in 1914Macfarlane, J.M. 1914. Nepenthaceae. In: L.S. Gibbs. A contribution to the flora and the plant formations of Mount Kinabalu and the Highlands of British North Borneo. Journal of the Linnean Society 42: 125–127. and The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture in 1919.Macfarlane, J.M. 1919. Nepenthes. In: L.H. Bailey. The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, Volume 4. pp. 2122–2130.
B. H. Danser treated N. edwardsiana in synonymy with N. villosa in his seminal monograph, "The Nepenthaceae of the Netherlands Indies", published in 1928. The work included a revised Latin diagnosis and botanical description of N. villosa.Danser, B.H. 1928. The Nepenthaceae of the Netherlands Indies. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg, Série III, 9(3–4): 249–438. Eight years later, Hermann Harms once again elevated N. edwardsiana to species status.Harms, H. 1936. Nepenthaceae. In: A. Engler & K. Prantl. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, 2 aufl. band 17b. This treatment was supported by Shigeo Kurata in 1976Kurata, S. 1976. Nepenthes of Mount Kinabalu. Sabah National Parks Publications No. 2, Sabah National Parks Trustees, Kota Kinabalu. and has not been challenged since.
A similar taxon from Mount Trusmadi was long considered to be N. edwardsiana.Marabini, J. 1984. A Field Trip to Gunong Trusmadi. Carnivorous Plant Newsletter 13(2): 38–40. It was described in 1987 as N. edwardsiana subsp. macrophylla by Johannes Marabini.Marabini, J. 1987. Eine neue Unterart von Nepenthes edwardsiana Hook.fil. sowie Anmerkungen zur Taxonomie der Gattung Nepenthes L.. Mitteilungen der Botanischen Staatssammlung München 23: 423–429. A decade later, Matthew Jebb and Martin Cheek recognised it as a separate species (N. macrophylla) in their monograph on the genus.Jebb, M.H.P. & M.R. Cheek 1997. A skeletal revision of Nepenthes (Nepenthaceae). Blumea 42(1): 1–106. This interpretation has been followed by subsequent authors.Cheek, M.R. & M.H.P. Jebb 2001. Nepenthaceae. Flora Malesiana 15: 1–157.Phillipps, A., A. Lamb & C.C. Lee 2008. Pitcher Plants of Borneo. Second Edition. Natural History Publications (Borneo), Kota Kinabalu.McPherson, S.R. 2009. Pitcher Plants of the Old World. 2 volumes. Redfern Natural History Productions, Poole.
Description Nepenthes edwardsiana is a climbing plant. The stem can attain a length of 15 m and is up to 10 mm in diameter. Internodes are up to 35 cm long and circular in cross section.
Leaves are coriaceous and petiolate. The lamina is truly lanceolate in shape and may be up to 30 cm long by 7 cm wide. It has an acute-obtuse apex that is occasionally acuminate. The base of the lamina is gradually or abruptly contracted at the petiole. The petiole is canaliculate and up to 15 cm long. It is generally winged and bears a partly amplexicaul sheath that clasps the stem for two-thirds to three-quarters of its circumference. One to three longitudinal veins are present on either side of the midrib. Pinnate veins are indistinct. Tendrils are generally between one and two times as long as the lamina and grow to 35 cm in length.
The pitcher base is bulbous to ovoid, with the pitcher cup becoming cylindrical in the upper two-thirds to three-quarters. The pitchers are some of the largest in the genus, sometimes exceeding 50 cm in height and 15 cm in width, although they are usually around 30 cm high.Clarke, C.M. 2001. A Guide to the Pitcher Plants of Sabah. Natural History Publications (Borneo), Kota Kinabalu. Wings at the front of the pitcher cup are either greatly reduced or absent altogether. On the inner surface of the pitcher, the glandular region is present in the bulbous portion. The mouth is elongated into a neck and has an oblique insertion. The peristome is cylindrical and up to 30 mm wide. It bears very highly developed teeth and ribs, the latter reaching 20 mm in diameter. The pitcher lid or operculum is cordate, up to 8 cm wide, and lacks appendages. An unbranched spur up to 20 mm long is inserted near the base of the lid. Pitchers range in colour from light yellow to dark red.D'Amato, P. 1998. The Savage Garden: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley. The inner surface of the pitcher is usually white, contrasting sharply with the rich colouration of the outer surface. Most parts of the pitcher are very flexible, including the peristome ribs, with only the pitcher base, where the digestive zone is located, being rigid.Anfraix, R. 2005. Discovery of Nepenthes edwardsiana at Marai Parai. Acta Botanica Gallica 152(2): 205–214. Anfraix, R. 2003. Découverte de N. edwardsiana au Marai Parai. Dionée 50.
Nepenthes edwardsiana has a racemose inflorescence. The peduncle may be up to 30 cm long, whereas the attenuate rachis reaches 20 cm in length. Pedicels are one-flowered, up to 25 mm long, and do not possess a bract. Sepals are round to elliptic in shape and up to 5 mm long. A study of 100 pollen samples taken from a herbarium specimen (Sands 3651, collected at an altitude of 2,600 m) found the mean pollen diameter to be 34.4 μm (SE = 0.5; CV = 7.7%).Adam, J.H. & C.C. Wilcock 1999. Palynological study of Bornean Nepenthes (Nepenthaceae). Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science 22(1): 1–7.
Most parts of the plant bear an indumentum of very short hairs, although it is not conspicuous.
Nepenthes edwardsiana varies relatively little across its range; consequently, no infraspecific taxa have been described.
Ecology
Habitat and distribution Nepenthes edwardsiana is endemic to the highland slopes of Mount Kinabalu and the eastern side of neighbouring Mount Tambuyukon in Sabah, Borneo. On Mount Kinabalu, this species has been recorded from the Marai Parai plateau, East Ridge, Upper Kolopis River, and an area below the Kambarangoh Telekom station (below Pondok Lowii).Thong, J. 2006. Travels around North Borneo – Part 1. Victorian Carnivorous Plant Society Inc. 81: 12–17. Nepenthes edwardsiana has an altitudinal distribution of 1,500–2,700 m above sea level.