Nepenthes thorelii

Nepenthes thorelii is a tropical pitcher plant endemic to Indochina. Very little is known about N. thorelii and it is unlikely to have entered cultivation, although various other taxa are often mislabelled as this species in the plant trade. Prior to its rediscovery in 2011, N. thorelii was considered possibly extinct, both in the wild and in cultivation.

Botanical history

The first known collection of N. thorelii was made by Clovis Thorel between 1862 and 1866 from Ti-tinh, Lo-thieu, Guia-Toan, Vietnam. During this time, Thorel collected a number of specimens of N. thorelii, all of which have been designated as Thorel 1032. One of these specimens, the lectotype, is a male plant with lower pitchers. It is deposited at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, together with one isotype: a female specimen with upper pitchers. A second isotype is held at Herbarium Bogoriense (BO), the herbarium of the Bogor Botanical Gardens. An additional specimen of Thorel 1032 is deposited at the New York Botanical Garden.

Nepenthes thorelii was formally described in 1909 by French botanist Paul Henri Lecomte, who named it after Thorel. The description was published in Lecomte's Notulae systematicae. Since then, one infraspecific taxon of N. thorelii has appeared in print; Nepenthes thorelii f. rubra was mentioned by Leo C. Song in a 1979 article published in the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter, but is considered a nomen nudum.