Nepenthes mapuluensis
Description
Terrestrial shrub to at least 20 cm tall, possibly climbing.
Leaves coriaceous, subsessile, lanceolate-obovate 13-26 by 2-5.5 cm, apex acute to rounded, peltate, base attenuate, parallel sided and somewhat dilated and amplexicaul at the very base, clasping the stem for c. 1/2 its circumference.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Borneo present, E Kalimantan present, Sambaliung Range present
Borneo: E Kalimantan (Sambaliung Range).
Taxonomy
2. The majority of the isotype material at Bogor exhibits very different upper pitchers from the remaining material, but the leaves match the remaining specimens, and we may presume that the species either shows an extreme dimorphy in shape of the upper pitchers, or that that material is a mixed collection with an unknown species.
1 This species has a striking similarity to N. northiana: the reclined ellipsoid lower pitchers with a large oblique mouth, the expanded peristome with an undulate outer edge, the large vaulted narrowly ovate lid and the peltate leaf tips. However, these similarities may be purely superficial. Nepenthes mapuluenis differs particularly in the slender, terete, strongly flexuose, puberulent stems, smaller, puberulent leaves, auriculate, non-decurrent leaf base, pitcher lid with keeled midline bearing numerous longitudinally elliptic nectar glands, nectar glands otherwise absent, diminutive inflorescence with 1-flowered partial peduncles and pedicels comparatively truncated. The upper pitchers of N. mapuluensis are so incompletely known that a full comparison with those of N. northiana cannot be made at this stage. Like N. northiana, N. mapuluensis is only known from limestone. One collection comes from the type locality of N. campanulata.
3. In the protologue (cited above), J.H. Adam & Wilcock only cited the holotype and so apparently based their description on this alone. Two other collections at Leiden and Bogor (Kostermans 13821 and Geesink 9314) allow us to make the more complete description of N. mapuluensis above. The description in the protologue does not entirely match the specimen that it is based on, for example, the specimen concerned does not have angular or glabrous stems, nor do the other specimens of this species that we have examined. We have modified the description above accordingly.