Botanical History
One of the first collections of N. spathulata was made by Maurits Anne Lieftinck. The specimen Lieftinck 11 was collected in January 1935 on Mount Tanggamus near Lampongs, Sumatra, at an altitude of 2000 m.
Nepenthes spathulata was formally described by B. H. Danser later that same year, the first of two Nepenthes species described by the Dutch botanist following the publication of his 1928 monograph, "The Nepenthaceae of the Netherlands Indies".
The next major taxonomic treatment of N. spathulata came only in 1986, when Rusjdi Tamin and Mitsuru Hotta treated the species in synonymy with N. singalana. The authors also lumped four other species under N. singalana: N. carunculata, N. gymnamphora, N. pectinata, and, by implication, N. densiflora. Many authors now consider N. carunculata to be a heterotypic synonym of N. bongso and N. pectinata is often equated with N. gymnamphora.
On Mount Dempo, Mike Hopkins, Ricky Maulder and Bruce Salmon found what they believed to be a new species of Nepenthes. They published an account of their discovery in a 1990 issue of the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter. It reads:
We headed back up the line and went to G. Dempo as we wanted to climb at least one unknown mountain. On this mountain, we found a new species related to the highland Sumatran species by its leaf shape, stem shape and inflorescence, but its upper pitchers are slightly similar to N. alata from the Philippines. We gave the name N. 'dempoensis' after the mountain from which it originated.
The name N. dempoensis is a nomen nudum and the taxon is now considered conspecific with N. spathulata.
In 1997, the genus Nepenthes was revised in its entirety by Matthew Jebb and Martin Cheek in "A skeletal revision of Nepenthes (Nepenthaceae)". The authors kept N. spathulata as a valid species and designated Lieftinck 11 as its lectotype.
In 2004, a Javan taxon resembling N. spathulata was discovered by Adrian Yusuf. Two years later, it was given the informal name N. adrianii (/nɨˈpɛnθiːz ˌædriˈæni.aɪ/) by Batoro, Wartono, and Matthew Jebb, and was treated as a distinct species in the book Trubus Info Kit: Nepenthes. These plants typically have reddish-green pitchers with red speckles and a red peristome. Nepenthes adrianii is generally considered to be a heterotypic synonym of N. spathulata.
Read more about this topic: Nepenthes Spathulata
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