Nepenthes Hurrelliana - Botanical History

Botanical History

Nepenthes hurrelliana was known to botanists for some time prior to its description, although authors differed as to its identity, with most treating it as either a form of N. veitchii, a form of N. maxima, or a natural hybrid. In 1988, Anthea Phillipps and Anthony Lamb published an illustration of a N. hurrelliana specimen from Mount Murud under the name "N. veitchii × N. fusca". However, in their 1996 monograph, Pitcher-Plants of Borneo, the authors treated it as an undescribed species, "Nepenthes sp.". The taxon was also listed as an undescribed species, "Nepenthes sp. B", in Charles Clarke's Nepenthes of Borneo (1997) and Hugo Steiner's Borneo: Its Mountains and Lowlands with their Pitcher Plants (2002).

In "Nepenthes of Gunung Murud", an article published in a 1996 issue of the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter, John De Witte describes a hybrid "most probably between N. veitchii and N. stenophylla or N. fusca", which likely represents this species.

In 1999, Bruce Salmon proposed that this taxon might be conspecific with the enigmatic N. mollis, of which only a single pitcherless specimen is known. This interpretation was not followed by Martin Cheek and Anthony Lamb, who formally described N. hurrelliana in 2003. The type specimen, A.Lamb & Surat 145/99, was collected on Mount Lumarku in Sabah and is deposited at the herbarium of the Forest Department, Sandakan (SAN).

Nepenthes hurrelliana is named after Andrew Hurrell, who studied the plant on Mount Murud in 1995 and whose field observations showed that it grew in self-sustaining populations independent of its putative parent species and could thus be considered a distinct species.