Shield-leaved Pitcher Plant

Nepenthes clipeata is known only from the sheer granite cliffs of Mount Kelam (Gunung Kelam) in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Its round, shield-like leaves are unique in the genus, and it is perhaps the most endangered of all Nepenthes, listed as Critically Endangered.

Nepenthes clipeata is unmistakable. Its thick, leathery leaves are round to ovate, 7 to 20 cm long, and peltate: the tendril joins the underside of the blade well before its tip, near the centre. Danser noted that only the Philippine N. truncata has a comparably aberrant leaf. The stem does not climb, reaching about 2 m at most, and the tendrils are short, thick and never curved.

The plant produces only one type of pitcher. Pitchers are up to 30 cm (12 in) tall, globose at the base and narrowing into a slightly funnel-shaped upper part, without wings, under a strongly vaulted lid. All parts are densely covered in long brown hairs. The inflorescence is small, rarely over 25 cm. It is a member of the N. maxima group, and natural hybrids with N. albomarginata, N. rafflesiana and N. reinwardtiana have been recorded.

Περιοχή καταγωγής: Mount Kelam, West Kalimantan, Borneo (endemic)

Κλιματικές Ζώνες: Tropical, about 600-800 m on a single granite mountain

Nepenthes clipeata grows in crevices in the near-vertical granite walls of Mount Kelam, at about 600 to 800 m. Danser suggested that its leaves stand vertically against the rock with the pitchers behind them. Some reports had called it a limestone plant, but this does not agree with the granite type locality. The site lies outside any national park or forest reserve, and searches of the surrounding mountains have found no other populations.

Μέγεθος ώριμου: Non-climbing stems up to about 2 m; pitchers up to 30 cm (12 in) tall

Ρυθμός ανάπτυξης: Moderate

Τύπος παγίδας: Pitfall Trap

The pitchers are pitfall traps. Their discoverer, Johannes Hallier, noted that the jug-shaped base can hold a large quantity of water, while the relatively narrow neck hinders the escape of insects that have fallen inside.

The name comes from Latin clipeus, a round shield, after the leaf shape.
Its discoverer reached it on a 45 m rattan ladder fixed to the cliff of Mount Kelam.
In 1995 only about 15 wild plants were thought to remain; Clarke later estimated as few as 2 to 6.
A 2010 survey found 260 plants, mostly on inaccessible cliffs, but a 2016 expedition found only seven.
Most flowering wild plants seen in 2010 were male.
The IUCN Red List assessed it as Critically Endangered in 2014 (Clarke and Lee, assessment T39652A19631488).

Johannes Gottfried Hallier first collected the species in 1894, climbing Mount Kelam five times between 30 January and 13 February. He found plants with unusually large pitchers growing on small patches of humus beside the rattan ladder that scaled the summit cliff. B. H. Danser described it in 1928 in The Nepenthaceae of the Netherlands Indies.

Collectors began visiting Mount Kelam in the 1980s and took large numbers of plants; local guides also gathered plants for their villages, where most died and were replaced. Droughts and fires during the 1997 to 1998 El Niño caused further losses. In 2005 the International Carnivorous Plant Society published plans for the Nepenthes clipeata Survival Project, to conserve as many genetically distinct lines as possible in cultivation; only three or four distinct lines of legally collected plants were thought to exist. The first plants were placed into in vitro culture from seed raised at the Munich Botanical Garden in 1997.

1. Nepenthes clipeata, Wikipedia
2. Nepenthes clipeata, Caryophyllales Network: Nepenthaceae (after Cheek & Jebb 2001, Flora Malesiana I, 15)
3. Nepenthes: species of Borneo, The Carnivorous Plant FAQ (Barry Rice)
4. Nepenthes clipeata Survival Project (Cantley, Clarke, Cokendolpher, Rice and Wistuba), Carnivorous Plant Newsletter 34(4): 116-120 (2005)
5. Nepenthes: basic cultivation, The Carnivorous Plant FAQ (Barry Rice)
6. Thumbnail guidelines on growing a tropical pitcher plant, The Carnivorous Plant FAQ (Barry Rice)