Inspired by photographs in old reports and on social media, an expedition of botanists trekked into the remote Meliau Range in Sabah in Borneo and confirmed a new and amazing species of pitcher plant. Then, they immediately realised it’s already endangered.
The newly described Nepenthes pongoides has a remarkably large pitcher, the jug-like leaf that evolved to trap and digest insects for nutrients that are limited in the soil. The largest pitcher they found was 45cm tall and could hold at least two litres of liquid!
Unlike most other species in Nepenthes, much of the new plant is covered in long, coarse, reddish hairs. This resemblance to orangutans, genus Pongo, inspired the plant’s species name, pongoides.
Orangutans and Nepenthes pongoides co-exist in this part of Malaysian Borneo.
The botanists – co-led by Alviana Damit of the Sabah Forestry Department in Malaysia and Alastair Robinson of the Royal Botanical Gardens Victoria in Australia – were surprised at the timing of their find.
“Remarkably, Nepenthes pongoides has gone undescribed until now despite its large size and striking apomorphies [unique evolutionary traits],” they write in their article in the CSIRO peer-reviewed Australian Journal of Botany from CSIRO Publishing.
The team made two field trips into the Meliau Range, counting individual plants and taking non-destructive samples for herbarium collections and genetic analyses.
They found that, unfortunately, Nepenthes pongoides shares another similarity with orangutans: it meets the criteria for being Critically Endangered.
Unlike the orangutan, which is predominately threated by habitat loss, Nepenthes pongoides is already “almost certainly” threatened by poaching, say the authors. Other species of Nepenthes, especially large specimens, attract strong interest from the illegal horticulture trade.
“Two species of Nepenthes are already deemed extinct in nature thanks to collectors, whose willingness to pay top dollar drives poachers into the rainforest to collect ornamental plants for lucrative sale online,” says Robinson.
A compounding conservation challenge for Nepenthes pongoides is limited population size. In their extensive surveys, Robinson and colleagues identified only 39 mature individuals.
In addition, these plants were restricted to one location with an area less than 10 square kilometres. This makes Nepenthes pongoides vulnerable to chance events, like fire, wiping out the entire species.
Many scientific questions remain about this unique carnivorous plant, such as the range of prey it attracts and the evolutionary purpose for its reddish hairs.
In the meantime, Damit and colleagues recommend that seeds from the endangered plant be collected and propagated, if allowed by the Malaysian government.
The authors conclude that the giant pitcher plant’s survival is “entirely dependent on decisive and effective conservation actions by government that safeguard both the rainforest habitat and its many threatened inhabitants.”
For plant enthusiasts looking to avoid supporting poachers, Robinson advises, “when purchasing plants, do so from reputable nurseries that supply material of known, legal provenance. It is also important to be realistic—rare plants not commonly available that are offered for sale on social media could very well be poached.”
He adds, “Ultimately, it is far more rewarding to visit these plants in nature, where you can see them at their best.”
