Nepenthes Spectabilis - Botanical History

Botanical History

The first known collection of N. spectabilis was made by Julius August Lörzing in 1920. The specimen Lörzing 7308 was collected on June 5, 1920, on Mount Sibajak at an altitude of 1800 to 1900 m. It is deposited at the Bogor Botanical Gardens (formerly the Herbarium of the Buitenzorg Botanic Gardens) along with two isotypes which include both male and female floral material. A third isotype, sheet H.L.B. 928.350-170, is held at the National Herbarium of the Netherlands in Leiden and includes female floral material.

Lörzing made two further collections of N. spectabilis in 1921. A fourth specimen was collected by Mohamed Nur bin Mohamed Ghose later that same year.

B. H. Danser formally described N. spectabilis in his seminal monograph "The Nepenthaceae of the Netherlands Indies", published in 1928. He designated Lörzing 7308 as the type specimen. Danser wrote:

This new species has only been found on the G. Sibajak and the G. Pinto, two tops of the same mountain ; the Bt. Semaik too certainly belongs to the same group. N. spectabilis grows above 1800 m elevation ; the habitat is alpine forest and scrub. It seems to be most closely related to N. sanguinea by the characters of the vegetative parts, but the inflorescences are quite different. Lörzing says of his number 8297 that it was a monoeceous plant ; since, however, in H. B. there is no stem fragment both with male and female flowers, I call this record into question.

The next major taxonomic treatment of N. spectabilis came only in 1986, when Rusjdi Tamin and Mitsuru Hotta covered the species in their monograph on the Nepenthes of Sumatra.

An article authored by Bruce Lee Bednar and published in a 1987 issue of the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter mentions a plant known as N. spectabilis in the horticultural trade. Taxonomist Jan Schlauer considers this plant conspecific with N. curtisii, which in turn is treated as a junior synonym of N. maxima.

In their 1997 revision of the genus, Matthew Jebb and Martin Cheek treated specimens of N. lavicola as belonging to N. spectabilis. They also designated Lörzing 7308 as the lectotype of N. spectabilis. The subsequent monograph of Charles Clarke treats these taxa as distinct species.