Description
Nepenthes muluensis is a climbing plant. The stem may attain a length of 4 m and is up to 5 mm in diameter. Internodes are cylindrical in cross section and up to 8 cm long.
The leaves of this species are coriaceous and sessile. The lamina is lanceolate in shape and up to 8 cm long by 1.5 cm wide. It usually has an acute apex and is gradually attenuate towards the base, extending into an amplexicaul sheath. Up to 4 longitudinal veins are present on either side of the midrib. Pinnate veins are numerous but indistinct. Tendrils are up to 8 cm long.
Rosette and lower pitchers are up to 7 cm high and 3 cm wide. They are ovate in the lower third, becoming cylindrical or conical above. The peristome is approximately cylindrical and up to 5 mm wide. Its inner margin is lined with small but distinct teeth. The pitcher mouth is round to ovate and has an oblique insertion. The lid or operculum is ovate and generally obtuse. It bears a number of filiform appendages (≤5 mm long) on its upper surface.
Upper pitchers are cylindrical for the most part, often with a bulbous basal quarter. Like their lower counterparts, they are relatively small, reaching only 10 cm in height and 2 cm in width. They have a pair of ribs in place of wings. The waxy zone of the inner surface is well developed. The pitcher mouth is round and bears a cylindrical peristome up to 3 mm wide. The lid is orbicular and lacks appendages. An unbranched spur in inserted near the base of the lid.
Nepenthes muluensis has a racemose inflorescence. It is very compact: the peduncle is only up to 3 cm long, while the attenuate rachis reaches 10 cm in length. Pedicels are up to 5 mm long and lack bracts. Sepals are ovate and up to 2 mm long. A study of 120 pollen samples taken from two herbarium specimens (J.H.Adam 2401 and J.H.Adam 2405) found the mean pollen diameter to be 32.0 μm (SE = 0.4; CV = 8.7%).
The species completely lacks an indumentum, with all parts of the plant being glabrous.
The type population of N. muluensis from Mount Mulu has a distinctive pitcher colouration. Lower pitchers are generally dark purple with sparse yellow speckles. The upper pitchers of this form are usually purple with numerous yellowish-white speckles. They often have a white peristome and lid. Plants from Mount Murud produce darker-coloured pitchers.
Read more about this topic: Nepenthes Muluensis
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)