Hello,
I'm back in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. A last week of research. I hope it will be more positive than the previous week spent in neighbouring Vietnam.
Because I really want the CP community to know more about about this peculiar species, I will, roughly, explain the "thoreliigate'':
1/
Nepenthes of Indochina have been studied between 1896 and 1909. Then nothing for almost one century.
2/ Most of the plants coming from this part of the world into private collections have been labelled as "N. thorelii'', without serious researches being undertaken. Many people realize that all these
thorelii plants are variable though quite similar.
Between 2004 and 2009, Marcello Catalano, Martin Cheek then myself start working on this group of plants. Conclusion is made that plants in cultivation do not fit the type description ad than the type locations haven't been visited since the first collections and the decription of the species.
Some of us hope to find again this ghost plant one day. Almost every location where it has been collected had been turned into plantations or heavily wounded by war (agent orange, napalm, B52's)". At one point, I even thought that the pecies might be extinct.
At this time, we didn't know how the species really look like.
3/ In 2007, I uncover new specimens in Paris herbarium. Adding that to the tyes of the species, I now have a clear idea of how the species looks.
4/ In november 2009, some Vietnamese growers post photos of a strange
Nepenthes from Vietnam. I immediately recognize
N. thorelii and exppress the wish to make sure that it is really
N. thorelii and to study the population in the field.
5/ Quickly,these photos generates a lively discussion. Some of them show a Vietnamese with a shovel hand and dirty hands holding an uprooted plant.
6/ I managed to get a roughly indication of the plants whereabouts. Charles Clarke, Well known expert, even wishes to join me. Very nice.
7/ The discussion turns into a real scandal. The Vietnamese decide to withdraw and delete their pictures. They refuse to help me further.
8/ February 2010: I'm in Vietnam with Charles Clarke. After a few days of research, we uncover the locality: a swamp. After a few hours of pointless investigations, we find out that " some Vietnamese kids from Ho-Chi-Minh city came a few months ago and dug all the red plants".
9/ With Charles, we visit many localities, including the type locations (visited 150 to 100 years ago) but we're not successful. Eveything has been turned into plantations or habitations.
10/ Officially, this species is not in cultivation (although many growers persist in labelling some of the plans as
N. thorelii). Recently,
N. htorelii was one of the few species, with the elusive
N. junguhnii (the spelling is not good ;-)) and
N. mollis, which weren't pictures in Stewart McPherson monography. The species is not in culture and the only know location has been destroyed.
You will find below the infamous pictures and some pictures of the Paris specimens.
Nepenthes thorelii is the emblematic
Nepenhes from Indchina and at the same time the least known of all. It might also be the most beautiful. I thik that many growers would fall in love with those ovoid lower pitchers and the same could be said about these upper pitchers, which look like some elongated
N. aristolochioides upper pitchers.
From a conservation point of view, it t's disaster. From the pont of view of the botanist and the taxonomist, it's really bad news. Finding
N. thorelii might have helped to elaborate a long awaited key to the Indochinese species.
I still have hope to find the species but I won't return to Vietnam without the suppport of the very small Vietnamese growers community (middle class kids). But, now, almost all of them seem completely unable to understand the issues of conservation and biodiveristy.
Francois.