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N rowanae in thailand?

Well, According to Dr. Jan Schlauer(when I spoke with him in 2000), nobody has the real N. thorelii in cultivation. The herberium specimen collected ages ago supposedly looks more like N. rafflesiana than what the current plant circulating as N. thorelii does.
So....this might be the true N. thorelii, or a hybrid like this piece suggests, or possibly a new species, I guess. More ijnvestigation will have to be done, but it's a neat discovery no matter what it turns out to be.
And you are right about what it looks like, because I thought "How can N. rowanae be in Thailand?" when I first saw it.

Cheers,

Joe
 
I have to agree with you guys, it does bear a striking resemblance to rowanae. Maybe some rafflesiana influence as apparently this particular variety was found in southern Thailand.
 
Its like a mouth with no pitcher!!!! I mean seriously this things mouth is HUGE but theres like no pitcher to go with it! What purpose does this serve.???
 
Very interesting stuff, both the rediscovery of N. rowanae and the different forms of mirabilis in Queensland, as well as the Nepenthes from Thailand. The plant called 'Viking', which looks like rowanae at first glance, also shows interesting variation within the form. Personally, I doubt if its a natural hybrid between raff and mirabilis, as I have seen many plants of mirabilis x rafflesiana, and none of them looked anything like this. It is most likely a radical new form of mirabilis, or a new species. It's similarity to rowanae seems purely coincidental- I know that Thailand, even southern Thailand, experiences seasonal changes, a dry winter season and a summer monsoon season. I believe such conditions also exist on Cape York?? Perhaps we are seeing similar pitcher form because both rowanae and 'Viking" come from similar habitats?
My intuition (because I have no scientific data to back me up) leads me to think that both the Australian and Thailand Nepenthes are undergoing speciation, with N. thorelii, anamensis, smilesii, mirabilis and 'Viking' all related, and in Australia, all the wild looking forms of mirabilis and rowanae recently found by Rod Kruger and Geoff Mansell doing something similar-all are related...but different.
Trent
 
So the moral of the story is...
Don't go looking for new species in Sumatra and New Guinea-they may be closer than you think...

smile_n_32.gif
 
Yea! It's as simple as trudging around in crocodile infested swamps.
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It would be interesting to see a more detailed account of where the Nepenthes 'Viking' grow-what the habitats are like. All I've heard is that its found on some islands off the southwest coast, and in some cases, there are no other Nepenthes growing along with it. This surely contrasts with the descriptions of several vastly different Nepenthes growing almost side by side in the Cape York swamps.
Fascinating
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Trent
 
Hi all:

This is a very interesting topic for discussion. There is a striking resemblance, but at the same time, i'd also like to  say that i am not surprised either.

Whether N. Rowanae is a species or simply a variation of N. mirabilis according to some is still debatable. However, species or not, there is no doubt that this plant's ancestor is N. Mirabilis. Therefore, it is possible that what we are seeing here is a case of divergent evolution as mentioned by Trent.  Plants carrying similar genes developed and survived under similar environments thousands of kilometers away from each other and you'll get the same results: N. viking and N. rowanae. Although i doubt whether they are identical, but they look very similar such as  N. ramispina and gracillima.


It'd be great to put pictures side by side of leaves and pitchers to make an appropriate comparison.

Gus
 
Isn`t it convergent evolution? I have to agree this is likely what is happening. I mean if it works for rowanae why not for viking?
 
  • #10
That was a very entertaining read as well as interesting. As I'm completly obsessed with rowanae those nepenthes had be totally entranced especially this photo
rowkrugsmall.jpg
 
  • #11
Hi pondboy. I thought about it and i chose divergent evolution because the plants are evolving in different habitats, even though very similar in conditions.
If i am not mistaken, it'd be convergent evolution if the plants were developing in the same habitat (physical space), but because one is in thailand and the other in Australia, there are two totally different locations plus the fact that they have the same ancestor (typical of divergent evolution)

Gus
 
  • #12
Hi Everybody! N. viking is becoming popular I see!
On Nepenthes of Indochina I'll soon add a few things about that plant. Things are not so far from what you're all saying, to my point of view.

The plant is clearly derived from N. mirabilis but it is very probably a new species, having been found in more than one location, only with specimens with that appearence, with no other species around.
And I gave the example of N. rowanae as well as you did, while adding these new infos on my website (that part is not online yet).

What seems to be happened is that this variation (roundish and red) of N. mirabilis probably "works" and mother nature has selected twice the same variation of the species to let it become two different new species (in two different countries)in the last few thousands of years.

No surprise if we'll find somewhere else another new species very similar to N. mirabilis but even more striking than rowanae, viking or echinostoma...

By the way, I looked at the pics of rowanae quite carefully, and even if they're similar, I'd say that N. viking and rowanae are two separate species...even if with the same ancestor.

Marcello
 
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  • #13
I agree Marcello. Also, just as there seems to be variation within rowanae, I see variation within Viking, based on pictures at Neofarm. How much color variation is there within N. 'Viking' beyond the pictures on websites?

Trent
 
  • #14
Marcello,

Based on the one website(I think your site has a link to it), it sounds like the author is very familiar with the plants and it's abundant in that locale......so, how did this stay "hidden" from the nep community until now(and when is it going to get in cultivation..
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?)

Cheers,

Joe
 
  • #15
Trent, Joe, quite happy to see how interest in these species is slowly increasing now that always more people understand how little we know about those species that once we thought common and obvious (anamensis, thorelii, kampotiana etc).

The color variations of N. viking go from deep pink to deep red, but the red color of the tendril seems to be one of the peculiarities with all the specimens.

This plant, together with the so called N. "Kraburi" (That's the name I think) has remained unknown until - I'm happy to say also thanks to my website -until some thai people and some growers realized that they were growing something new, something that is not thorelii ...
You could also ask why N. smilesii has remained unknown up to now...while everybody is growing it! the reason is the same (you can read more on my site): there's so much confusion, not so many species, not so interesting and in a so hard to explore territory, that people prefer to spend their time trying to solve problems with new attractive highland species from Borneo and Malaysia...

I can understand their point, but I was attracted by Indochina right because nobody knows anything about its pitcher plants...and there's still a lot to do...

when you talk about the site owner I think you mean the site with N. viking and kraburi...I'm in contact with that person and in the future every news will appear on nepenthesofthailand...(I need visitors, you know...:)))
just...don't think he knows much more than what you read on that page about thorelii etc...

Trent, on your website the N. kampotina is not exactly a mistake. That's What M. Cheek and me call N. smilesii, wrongly named N. kampotiana and N. anamensis (with "wrongly" I mean that those two names are valid but not accepted, as they were given after that the same plants had already been named...read the N. smilesii chronology on my website).
But It's less wrong than saying it's N. thorelii.

anamensis, kampotiana or smilesii, we are talking about the same plant, just to be clear. Wheter or not anamensis is more correct than smilesii, at the moment is up to which "school" you follow...

What you call thorelii I think is a hybrid (well, you say it's a hybrid actually:). And this is the same "mistake" also Exotica Plants did (with thorelii, smilesii and maybe viking), to produce a hybrid with plants we still didn't identify for sure. This leads to even more confusion and we call "thorelii" a hybrid that doesn't even have a thorelii inside!

The plant you have could be a hybrid between N. smilesii and viking, or between smilesii and thorelii....but we'll never be sure with a hybrid. We need to see the original plants that were crossed... I'd really like that, if you could...Thanks!

Trent, I'll also try to do what I can to have some of those in vitro plants, as I want to see them on the large scale market: that's the only way to save nepenthes from extinction.
But to deal with that country can be quite complicate...


cheers,
Marcello
 
  • #16
Honestly, I was not aware that N. smilesii had been granted species status(I thought it was still N. mirabilis var smilesii). How embarassing!
confused.gif


Cheers,

Joe
 
  • #17
[b said:
Quote[/b] (The Griffin @ Oct. 13 2004,11:06)]Honestly, I was not aware that N. smilesii had been granted species status(I thought it was still N. mirabilis var smilesii). How embarassing!
If so, it would be nice if the ICPS Database was updated to show this. It does not show N. smilesii to be a species. It even shows the status of N. mirabilis var smilesii to be merged into N. mirabilis.
 
  • #18
Thanks for the input, Marcello.

Some of those clones of 'Tiger' and 'Red Tiger' are very nice too. Hardly the boring anamensis!

Trent
 
  • #19
Hi Marcello:

Thanks for your input. It is a very interesting topic. I agree with you regarding the origins of Viking and Rowanae. I was wondering whether you can do a comparison study between the two species, pointing out the differences so we can get educated a bit more. Perhaps, it would be great if you can get some pictures of Rowanae and put them side by side with those of Viking?

Does anybody have a picture of the real thorellii?

Gus
 
  • #20
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Hi pondboy. I thought about it and i chose divergent evolution because the plants are evolving in different habitats, even though very similar in conditions.
If i am not mistaken, it'd be convergent evolution if the plants were developing in the same habitat (physical space), but because one is in thailand and the other in Australia, there are two totally different locations plus the fact that they have the same ancestor (typical of divergent evolution)

Hey Gus,
I think Pond Boy is actually right on this one. Convergent evolution is when two species evolve similar traits to cope with similar conditions. Divergent evolution would mean they were developing different traits.
For example, there are two species of vine snake, one in the North America and one in Africa (? think it's Africa) that are virtually indistringuisable on the visible level. This is due to convergent evolution: They live in similar environments, and both developed the same body shape/coloring to cope with it.
 
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