The Conservation Report

IMAGE is from a conservatory in Lyon, France and the image was released by the Lyon City Hall.

A new species of extremely rare pitcher plant was discovered in Cape York, Australia called “Tenax”. It is probably a new species of Nepenthes since they are known on rare occasions to trap rodents, frogs or even birds like in this image of Nepenthes truncata. In addition, Nepenthes sp. or Monkey Cups ( monkeys have been observed drinking from the pitchers) or tropical pitcher plant as this genus is also referred as, is an old world tropical plant ranging from the Indian Ocean on the island of Madagascar and from India and South China to Borneo, Sumatra, New Guinea and Australia. If the new pitcher plant does regularly trap small rodents then it is a unique carnivorous plant since all other types normally feed on insects and may die if fed anything larger or more complex such as a “small rat”. And like the new giant palm just found in Madagascar, Ta­hi­na spec­ta­bi­lis, this new Australian pitcher plant is being kept secret from poachers and collectors. From ABC Online, Australia:

James Cook University ecologist Charles Clarke and a colleague found the new species at a swamp near the Jardine River, but exactly where is a secret.

“They are quite vulnerable,” he said.

“They are only found in a few small areas and if we broadcast the location then there are people out there who would take advantage of that.

Here is an exciting account describing an expedition from 2001 into the same area or the Cape York region of Far North Queensland entitled Australian Nepenthes Discovery of the Century….:

One that is worthy of special mention was a large plant of N.rowanae. The actual plant was located on an island in the swamp that was surrounded by deeper water than usual. It covered an area of about 10m2 and the pitchers were huge and nearly as broad as they were high. One thing also worth noting especially in deciding whether N. rowanae should be a distinct species, which we think it should, is the marked difference in the plant compared to typical N. mirabilis . N. rowanae can be distinguished from a distance as the plant has a blue colouration on the upper surface of it?s leaves and some coarse hair was noticed on the upper surface of the leaves. I have also seen these hairs on the leaves of N. rafflesiana. The plant is a lot more robust and tough….

UPDATE the pitcher plant is from the genus Nepenthes and Wikipedia has an entry for Nepenthes tenax and more information can be found in this publication:

Clarke, C.M & R. Kruger 2006. Nepenthes tenax C.Clarke and R.Kruger (Nepenthaceae), a new species from Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. Austrobaileya 7(2): 319–324.

Image of Nepenthes tenax at left found here and here via Wikipedia. Doesn’t look too much like a regular rodent muncher to me.

Image Found Here