Conclusions so far

If you don’t want to look at the maps and just want to know, shortly, which species are growing in Thailand, this is what I know:

N. smilesii: it’s everywhere in cultivation, usually sold as N. thorelii. All the plants in cultivation at the moment come from Phu Kradung. And probably hundreds of N. thorelii hybrids are in fact N. smilesii hybrids. It has also been named N. anamensis, but that’s now considered by Cheek to be a synonym (see the N. smilesii chronology). It’s an intermediate species, which grows from 700 to 1500 meters altitude, on the mountains of the north-east region.

N. kampotiana: it’s very rare, both in the wild and in cultivation. It has pear-shaped spotted pitchers and round lids. It’s a lowland plant with a long inflorescence, which seems to grow just in the central region (Trat). From there its distribution line seems to continue trough Cambodia and Vietnam, where it was found in the past. In the x-plants page you can see some photos of sp. 1, from Cambodia, which is now considered by Cheek to be N. kampotiana (see the last part of the “long research”). Its completely glabrous leaves and stem make it very easy to spot. The tendrils and pitchers are covered with very, very small hair, smaller than N. smilesii.

N. thorelii: apparently this ghost plant could end up being considered just a synonym! Dry specimens are poor, and they are as usual undistinguishable in their shape from the other plants belonging to this group of narrow leaved species. Having been found in southern Vietnam, once we’ll find the type location we could discover how it’s actually N. kampotiana, smilesii or a new thing which we have never seen. Considering these premises, it can’t be in cultivation yet. I had no time to see the specimens properly, but checking their indumentum (hair) could help us to exclude smilesii or kampotiana.

N. sp. "Viking": that's the name they use in Thailand for this beautiful plant that only grows on one of the Ao Pang nga islands, in the south. N. Viking is probably something that in a few hundred years resulted from the very variable N. mirabilis: a descendent of this species as much as N. echinostoma or N. rowanae probably are. Shigeo Kurata is still in doubt if describing this as the new “N. globosa” or if considering it just a form of N. mirabilis (see more news and photos in Phangà, in the last few lines of The Trip and through Nong’s website). N. Viking is a lowland plant, which forms rhizomes to survive during the periods of drought.

N. gracilis: it just grows in the south. I only know of two or three sites.

N. mirabilis: in the south and part of the centre, wherever you find white sandy bogs or swamps (and yet these are not as common as you might think), there you’ll probably find N. mirabilis, sometimes in a lot of varieties. Sometimes these sites are on the road sides, where for obvious reasons people couldn’t extend their plantations and the bogs where left alone.

N. kongkandana: sometimes called “giant thorelii” by Thai people, this plant has been found so far in two locations in the southern region: Phangà and Chanà. Being called “thorelii” as much as many other different Thai species, the main risk is to create some confusion with other unidentified plants coming from the Surat, Chumpon and Phanga provinces, plants called “thorelii” by Thai people, never seen by me in the wild and never completely understood in their taxonomy. Read more in the Chanà page and in the x-plants page. N. kongkandana is covered by the same kind of hair which covers N. smilesii, and the two species are very closely related. N. kongkandana has shorter leaves and round lids, but I don’t think that’s enough yet to tell the difference. N. kongkandana only grows in the south and at sea level. It lacks the peculiar lateral veins that are so visible on the N. smilesii pitchers.

N. ampullaria: so far I just know that it grows in two locations, in the Narathiwat and Songkla provinces.

N. sanguinea: it grows on the southern mountains, very close to the border with Malaysia, where at the moment the thai and malay police are fighting against muslim terrorists, not the right place for a pleasant excursion in the sticks.

N. benstonei: see N. sanguinea.

Check out the X-plants page to see which other species – old and new – are growing in Thailand.