Nepenthes lavicola
Content
Description
Terrestrial climber to 3 m tall.
Leaves coriaceous, sessile or obscurely petiolate;
Flower colour unknown.
Fruits with valves 17-20 by 2-4 mm.
Seeds filiform, 7 by 0.2 mm.
Taxonomy
1 Nepenthes lavicola seems most closely related to N. spectabilis in its elongated, slightly infundibuliform upper pitchers, in the ovate lid, in the similar nectar gland shape and distribution and in the stem and leaf morphology. However, N. lavicola has shorter upper pitchers with a mainly rounded, narrower (not flattened, broader) peristome which has more prominent ribs than in N. spectabilis, and in all these characters approaches N. singalana. Nepenthes lavicola is distinguished from N. spectabilis in being distinctly less hairy, in the short (3-5 mm rather than 10-22 mm long), pointed, sometimes bifurcate spur, in the shorter fruit valves (17-20 mm not c. 40 mm) and in the tendency to longer bracts (16-18 mm long in the female of N. lavicola).
2. Nepenthes lavicola together with N. mikei (the latter collected by Frey-Wyssling in the same area in 1930) are the most northerly, by about 120 km, of all Sumatran Nepenthes. Nepenthes lavicola is the only species of the genus recorded from lava. It is known to us only from the specimens cited, all gathered in a few adjoining hectares. Wistuba & Rischer suggest in their protologue (cited above) that it is likely to be found elsewhere on the G. Geuredong massif, e.g. also on G. Geuredong and G. Popandji.