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Nepenthes alzapan
In June 1925 Maximo Ramos and Gregorio Edaño climbed Mount Alzapan, a peak in the Sierra Madre of Luzon, for the Bureau of Science in Manila. They collected a pitcher plant with small, rotund pitchers and a long male inflorescence. Only in 2013 did Martin Cheek and Matthew Jebb describe that collection as a species of its own. Since 1925 Nepenthes alzapan has, as far as is known, not been seen by anyone, and the authors allowed for the possibility that it is already extinct.
No photograph of this species under a Creative Commons licence or in the public domain is in the guide yet.
Identification
A climber at least forty centimetres tall, with a strikingly acutely triangular, pale brown stem five to seven millimetres thick, two of whose three angles extend into wings three to four millimetres wide running down from the leaf bases. The leaves are sessile and leathery, ligulate to oblong, 8 to 13.5 cm long and 1.5 to 2.5 cm wide, with five to seven longitudinal nerves on each side; the base clasps two-thirds of the stem and runs down as a wing almost to the next node. Upper pitchers are small and almost globose, 6.5 to 6.8 cm tall and 4.2 to 5 cm wide, with scattered appressed hairs and wings developed over only a short stretch. The mouth is almost circular and the broadest part of the pitcher. The peristome is broad, 6 to 10, sometimes 14 mm, with a revolute outer margin and curved teeth on the inner margin. The lid is elliptic, about 2.5 cm long, without an appendage, with the nectar glands in two curved bands along the sides. Lower pitchers are not known.
Similar species
The authors compared the species with Nepenthes bellii of Mindanao and nearby islands, another small species with squat pitchers. Nepenthes bellii has a terete to at most slightly angled stem and funnel-shaped upper pitchers. The acutely triangular, winged stem and the rotund pitchers with a very broad peristome make Nepenthes alzapan unmistakable on Luzon. The male inflorescence is also large for so small a plant: 31.5 to 42 cm long, with 80 to 110 one-flowered side branches.
The trap and how it works
A small pitfall with a proportionally very broad peristome. On a pitcher of barely seven centimetres, a rim one to one and a half centimetres wide is exceptional; the ribs stand one and a half millimetres apart and the inner margin bears curved teeth half to three-quarters of a millimetre long. The lid has no appendage and the midline is bare; the nectar glands, 35 to 110 on each side, lie in two curved bands, densest at the base. A rotund pitcher with a broad rim offers a large, smooth surface down which insects slide inside. Nothing is known about prey.
Habitat and ecology
The label records submontane mossy forest at 1800 m (B1). Nothing more is known about the habitat; the only collection is a century old, and since then the Sierra Madre has changed greatly in many places through logging and clearance. Other plants described from the same 1925 expedition have not been refound either.
Distribution and elevation
Endemic to Luzon, and known only from Mount Alzapan in the Sierra Madre, in what was then Tayabas province, today's Quezon and Aurora. The label in our species list is correct. A type collection with isotypes at Kew, New York, Berkeley and Washington together make up all known material, from at most three plants.
- Native
Forms and variation
For a species resting on one collection no variation is known. The measurements in the description show some spread, especially in peristome width, from 6 to 14 mm. No hybrids are known.
Where and when to see it
There is no place where this species can be seen. Anyone visiting the higher parts of Luzon's Sierra Madre can look out for a small climbing pitcher plant with a triangular, winged stem and rotund little pitchers with a strikingly broad rim. A well-documented find would be the first in a hundred years; leave the plant where it is and report it to a Philippine herbarium.
Conservation status
The Red List assesses the species as Data Deficient. What is known: at most three individuals were seen, at one place, in 1925, on an island that lost much forest in the twentieth century. The authors rated it Critically Endangered and possibly extinct in 2013. The Red List verdict reflects that we simply do not know whether the species still exists. Like all Nepenthes it is listed in CITES Appendix II.
Scientific name
Nepenthes alzapan | Jebb & Cheek, 2013
Described by Matthew Jebb and Martin Cheek in 2013, in "Nepenthes alzapan (Nepenthaceae), a new species from Luzon, Philippines", Phytotaxa 100(1): 57–60, based on material collected in submontane mossy forest at 1800 metres altitude in the Sierra Madre. The type locality lies on Mount Alzapan, in the Sierra Madre, on the island of Luzon, Philippines. The name refers to Mount Alzapan, the type locality.
World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), via Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.