Botanical History
The earliest known collection of N. tobaica was made by Johannes Elias Teijsmann on February 8, 1856, probably from the Batak regions. This specimen, which includes female floral material, is H. L. B. 908,155-1106.
Matthew Jebb and Martin Cheek designated this specimen as the lectotype of N. tobaica in their 1997 monograph.
Nepenthes tobaica was formally described in 1928 by Dutch botanist B. H. Danser in his seminal monograph "The Nepenthaceae of the Netherlands Indies". At the time, the species was already known from numerous herbarium specimens. Danser suggested a possibly conspecific species in N. reinwardtiana:
"N. tobaica has only been found on the plateau north, east and south of Lake Toba. It is most closely related to N. Reinwardtiana and I am not quite certain, whether it is perhaps a form of this species, but up till now no intermediate forms have been discovered."
In the scientific literature, N. tobaica has been confused with the closely related N. angasanensis on several occasions. Nepenthes tobaica as described in Danser's 1940 description of N. densiflora is actually N. angasanensis. Specimens identified as N. tobaica in Rusjdi Tamin and Mitsuru Hotta's 1986 monograph on Sumatran Nepenthes actually represent both N. angasanensis and N. tobaica.
Some plants sold in the horticultural trade under the name N. tobaica are likely to represent a manmade cross between N. khasiana and N. ventricosa.
Read more about this topic: Nepenthes Tobaica
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