Nepenthes Bicalcarata - Botanical History

Botanical History

Nepenthes bicalcarata was formally described by Joseph Dalton Hooker in his 1873 monograph, "Nepenthaceae", based on specimens collected by Hugh Low and Odoardo Beccari near Lawas River in Borneo. The type specimen, Low s.n., is deposited at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Seven years later, Spencer Le Marchant Moore described Nepenthes dyak, based on a specimen collected by Johannes Elias Teijsmann, Teijsmann 10962, from Kapuas River near Sintang in western Borneo. This specimen is also held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and a duplicate is deposited at the National Herbarium of the Netherlands in Leiden. Nepenthes dyak was later mentioned several more times in the botanical literature, but is now considered conspecific with N. bicalcarta.

Nepenthes bicalcarata was introduced to Europe in 1879 by British explorer Frederick William Burbidge, who collected plants for the famous Veitch Nursery. These were cultivated to larger size and distributed in 1881.

During this time, interest in Nepenthes had reached its peak. A note in The Gardeners' Chronicle of 1881 mentions the Veitch Nursery's N. bicalcarata as follows:

"Then there is N. bicalcarata, a most robust habited kind with sturdy foliage and bag-like pitchers provided with a vicious-looking rat-trap-like apparatus in its lid which renders it very distinct from its neighbours."

Several years after its introduction, N. bicalcarata was still very much a horticultural rarity. In Veitch's catalogue for 1889, N. bicalcarata was priced at £3.3s per plant, while the famous giant-pitchered N. northiana and N. rajah were selling for £2.2s.