Nepenthes Bellii - Botanical History

Botanical History

Nepenthes bellii was formally described by Katsuhiko Kondo in the November–December 1969 issue of the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. The holotype, designated as Kondo 11514, was collected on April 14, 1968, from a "wimming pool between Hayangobon & Carrascar" in Surigao, Mindanao, at an altitude of 800 m. It was collected by Kondo as part of a 1968 trip to the Philippines alongside J. V. Pancho. The holotype is deposited at the herbarium of the North Carolina Botanical Garden (NCU); isotypes are held at the KC and Nagoya herbaria.

Nepenthes globamphora, which is now considered to be a heterotypic synonym of N. bellii, was described by Shigeo Kurata and Masami Toyoshima in a 1972 issue of The Gardens' Bulletin Singapore. The holotype of this taxon, designated as Kurata & Toyoshima 1128, was collected on August 22, 1965, from Mount Legaspi in Surigao del Sur, Mindanao, at an elevation of 270 m. It is deposited at the herbarium of the Nippon Dental College (NDC). A very early mention of N. globamphora (at the time a nomen nudum as the taxon was undescribed) appeared in a 1966 issue (volume 36, page 15) of the Journal of Insectivorous Plant Society.

The next detailed treatments of N. bellii appeared in Matthew Jebb and Martin Cheek's 1997 monograph, "A skeletal revision of Nepenthes (Nepenthaceae)", and their 2001 revision, "Nepenthaceae". In the latter publication, Cheek and Jebb noted that little ecological data was known about the species and that it was represented in herbaria by only the two type collections (Kondo 11514 and Kurata & Toyoshima 1128) at the time. Stewart McPherson's 2009 monograph, Pitcher Plants of the Old World, presented an updated description and colour habitat photographs of N. bellii.