Trip 2006

On January 2006 I went back to Thailand for another good two months. This time my trip was a little bit better organized. While in 2004 I had no idea about the places where I could have found Nepenthes, this time I had this website as a point of reference, and I could use these last two years of knowledge to set up some kind of track to follow. The track followed being nothing but the red spots that you see on my maps. Of course I wasn’t much interested in visiting all the N. mirabilis locations, as they are too many and I just had two months. My main targets were the less known species.

In these two months I was able to visit about 20 different areas in the north, northeast, centre and south of Thailand. While living in many of these areas (which include cities and national parks) I visited some further locations, villages and reserves. I was travelling every day of the week, mainly with bus, minibus (“songtaew”) and hitchhiking. Probably I had about one week of relax in two months. It was quite stressing, especially considering that I found much less of what I could expect.

First, the bad news: During my previous trip, thanks to the owner of the guesthouse where I was living, we managed to reach by phone a good number of national parks, maybe around fifty. We asked if they had Nepenthes. Only ten of them said “yes”. These ten parks formed on my maps a line which indicated how some Nepenthes plants were living on the mountains that surround the northern region. Well, I visited all these ten parks and, incredibly, it seems that ALL OF THEM in 2004 …lied! I went there and all the time the staff ensured me that there were no Nepenthes, and most of the time they didn’t even recognize the phone number that we had called two years before. So, the north map looks quite different now.

Then the good news. I found:

In the Northeast:

Thung Kramang with N. smilesii, soon available through Wistuba and Borneo Exotics.

Pha Taem with N. smilesii.

In the Centre:

Trat with N. kampotiana.

Ko Chang with N. sp.

In the South:

Thung Khai with a “bizarre” form of N. mirabilis.

I also found some interesting locations for N. mirabilis in Krabi, Thung Nui, Mae Wa, Kaeng Tanà and Phangà.

Believe me, looking for Nepenthes in Thailand is like looking for the Holy Grail. The 70 percent of the original forest is gone, together with the 70 percent of probabilities to find pitcher plants. The few locations remained are mostly known by a little number of local people. The people who know most of the locations seem to be the same people who sell the plants at Chatuchak and who sometimes get in touch with Nong. These same people will ask a lot of money (hundreds of dollars) to bring you to see the plants in the few square metres where they still survive in a whole province. I’ll go on trying to find these plants without the help of these people, as long as I can. I’ll make sure they enter in cultivation on a large scale so that their presence on the black market will naturally decrease and the plants in cultivation will also provide a back-up collection of what is disappearing in the natural habitat. But after having finished all the possible tracks to follow to find new locations, paying the plant hunters will be the only way to proceed.

At the present moment the conservation status of the plants from these locations is as follows:

N. smilesii – not in danger, as it grows on the mountains, usually in large colonies, where new buildings and plantations can’t arrive. It’s not a very impressive species, and the plants from Phu Kradung are in every collection now, so there’s no way it can disappear.

N. kampotiana in Trat – about 15 suffering plants were found among two rice paddies. Another couple of years and they will be probably gone. I don’t know much about the other location for this species found by Tom Kahl in the same area.

N. sp. in Ko Chang – a lot of plants on the top of a mountain inside a national park, most of them are impossible to reach, just one guy seems to know how to reach the area and the park staff is now well aware of how rare their “guest” is.

N. mirabilis “bizarre” at Thung Khai – a large colony of this strange form grows inside this natural reserve. The director is well aware of their value and CITES annexation and they are well protected.

N. mirabilis – it remains the most common species, but just if compared to the others. As it grows in the lowland bogs, its habitat is being destroyed day after day. I’m afraid that in another 10 years not much will remain.

N. Viking – the island where it grows is unknown and uninhabited. So the only danger is given by the black market.

I also have to add that, looking at the herbarium specimens and considering the latest findings by Nong, N. ampullaria and N. gracilis seem to be limited to just a couple of locations each in the whole Country.

At the end of my trip I also visited the BK herbarium in Bangkok, which revealed many interesting new locations and plants. They will be the target of my next journey.

In the Northeast:

Nakon Ratchasima with an unknown species

Sisaket with N. smilesii

Ubon Ratchatani with N. smilesii

In the South:

Kanchanadit with an unknown species

Nakon Si Thammarat with N. gracilis

Adang with an unknown species

Plus, about 15 new locations for N. mirabilis.