more pics

[fatboy]

I am really enjoying sharing my trip pics with people that appreciate them. No one around here wants to see my CP pics!

Here's a couple more from past trips.

This is from a trip about 4 years ago.
Have a go at guessing what species it is. (yes I do know)
Let me know if you need clues.

This shack was home sweet home for nearly a month while I messed around in the general area of the above Nepenthes. I wasn't fatboy after that trip I can tell you. I came home about 7kg lighter after eating little fish and hedgehogs that we had to catch ourselves, with rice.

This is an ovata we found by the road in West Sumatra.

A visually stunning species in a location that is just as spectacular. Aristolochiodes grows on a mountain named "Tujuh" which means "seven" in Indonesian. It's an ancient volcanic crater that has become a lake and there are seven small peaks around the lake. The lake itself is at 2000m altitude and the peaks rise up from between about 500m to 800m above the level of the lake. It is freezing cold in the morning but breathtaking at the same time.
Also a LOT of a singalanery kind of thing and we also found some huge, dead bongso pitchers on the trail up to the lake.

No prize for guessing what this one is, on Mt Talang. One of my very favourite Neps (sadly it's always so dark in the moss forrest and I'm not good at flash photography).

Cheers, Troy

 

[swords]

Amazing!
You can show me all the photos you want!

 

[neps]

FB,

Thanks for sharing your photos!

I would guess that the first pic you displayed shows N. mapuluensis. Please
let me know if that guess is in error!

Have to say that while I don't think that a diet of fish and rice would be too objectionable
(I'd endure a lot to see these plants in person&#33

, am not sure about eating hedgehogs....

BTW, have you any idea just how cold (and how warm) it gets in the area of N. aristolochioides?
Am always trying to get a bit more habitat data! Thanks!

 

[Tristan]

I also think that its N. mapuluensis. It matches the description and picture in "Nepenthes of Borneo".

 

[Martin]

Hi !

Very(&#33

nice pictures ! Thank you...

I'm also interested in information about the climate, N. aristolochioides and N. inermis grows in natural habitat.

It looks like inermis recieves only few bright light.
Seems that I grow my plant under to intensive light because it only has 3-4 green leaves and 1-2 healthy pitchers.

Or maybe nighttime temperature is not low enough during summer.

Martin

 

[fatboy]

That was quick!
Both correct, that's mapuluensis. Quite a cool Nep and not at all in short supply in east Kalimantan. It was growing on top of a little limestone peak at 600m.
Quite surprising that it's not in cultivation as to me at least (and from your PM obviously you too Neps) it's an attractive plant.

Martin inermis DOES normally get a lot of bright light as it is epiphytic and tends to grow right up in the tops of the surrounding trees so you miss most of it at lower altitudes. On or near the summit in moss forest the vegetation is a lot shorter, the tallest trees are sometimes only a few metres high and it’s a lot easier to find. Again it receives plenty of light.

The aristolochiodes site is very particular for some reason known only to that plant! As I said, there are seven peaks around the lake and they all appear fairly similar apart from one or two being VERY steep and absolutely impossible to scale. I have been up three of the peaks and conditions on top seem the same too, but… aristolochiodes only grows on the very summit ridge of the one peak. There are not that many plants, especially the last time I went up there. As in the pic there is a lot of moss and stunted vegetation, very typical ridge moss forest.
Most of the highland Nepenthes I have seen have been large populations and usually they can be found on more than one mountain. In addition, not a lot of people visit the peaks of the mountains and even less take much notice of the plants up there apart from the occasional local collecting rattan or hunting. Aristolochiodes is in a similar situation to clippeata in that it could very easily become a victim of collectors and this is one plant that I genuinely have concerns about. Dubia is probably the only other one that I can think of in Sumatra that is as at risk to the same degree.


Troy.

Sorry Martin, meant to add for you - that inermis pic was the first inermis I had ever seen, it was taken at around 1700m on my first trip up Talang and doesn't represent an accurate pic of inermis's usual habitat. A large tree had fallen over and this plant was growing in the crown of the tree which was lying on the forest floor, hence the darkness of this photo.

 

[RaW$VENUS.FLY.TRAP.beginner]

before i finished reading post i was about to guess that the first one was a mix of those bongso and ovata pitchers,
it does seem like it doesn it,,,, i mean it saslightly curved pitcher and has those textures slightly fatter than the ovata,
just and all those characteristics it has that ovata is missing are found in bongso, i was dissapointed when u said its a mapuluensis, what would a true hybrid between ovata and bongso look like ?

 

[Tony Paroubek]

I love em! Keep em coming FB!!!

I could have sworn I have seen mapuluensis available somewhere but it is very hard to find for some reason. Kinda busy right now so I will have to check later.

Raw.. what makes it so interesting is the very vertical opening of the pitcher. Bongso and ovata are fairly similiar IMO. Tubby with wide flairing peristomes. Coloring is a bit different. Bongos is a nice cherry red while ovata is purple/black. The plants are fairly different though. Maybe later I can get some pics.. I have the cutest little bongso seedling with the pitcher bigger than the plant!

Tony

 

[Tony Paroubek]

Here are the ovata and bongso pics..
T
bongso seedling

ovata seedling

 

[fatboy]

Tony

Bongso and ovata are fairly similar in lots of peoples opion

and one of the biggest challenges for Charles when doing his Sumatra book was trying to sort out the mish mash that make up so many of the species from central Sumatra.
Singalana itself displays massive variation and in fact the singalana that is found on the summit of singalang is the most "standard" (read boring) of any of the many many variations. It is almost like a large gracilis, whereas something grows on the mountain with aristolochiodes that didn't look at all like singalana but Charles keyed it out and decided that that is what it was. In the Sumatra book have a look at species B, page 211. We found that on the same mountain that we found jacquelineae but it took a long time before Charles was willing to accept it wasn't singalana.

The gymnamphora and pectinata thing presents the same situation once again.

Just finally, we found a plant on a volcano miles from anywhere that could only have been a massive form of tobaica yet was far too large and wasn't anywhere that tobaica shoulld have been, and again in a swamp in Jambi another tobaica like plant. That means that tobaica is found around lake Toba, then nothing for 700km and there it is again (or something similar).

The point is there are quite a few plants floating around in the middle of Sumatra that have either evolved from each other or a common ancestor, or have crossed and re crossed to the point that there are sustainable populations of all sorts of intermediate species all over the place.

Pretty confusing!

Cheers, Troy.

 

[MaskedNinja]

Hi Neps...Welcome to the forums.  I love pictures, thanks for sharing fatboy and Tony.

 

[cephalotus88]

very nice pics fatboy and tony. love those neps, when i went to jakarta a few summers ago, i didnt get the chance to go nep seraching (like i will find one there lol). Hmm..the only thing it seems i did there was catch lizards and learn how to say "burapa inny" (How much? in Indonesian)

 

[RamPuppy]

more pictures fatboy! I am drooling!