Scientists have discovered pitcher-plants (Nepenthes thorelii Lecomte) at the Lo Xo-Xa Mat national part in the southern province of Tay Ninh, after over 100 years of disappearance in Vietnam.

The trees were founded during a survey by experts from the Vietnam Tropical Biology Institute and researchers from France and the UK last year.

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 mislabeled as this species in the plant trade. Prior to its rediscovery in Vietnam last year, N. thorelii was considered possibly extinct, both in the wild and in cultivation.

The first known collection of N. thorelii was made by Clovis Thorel between 1861-1869in Thi Tinh commune, Lo Thieu district of the southern province of Binh Duong, 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.

Nepenthes thorelii was rediscovered in the Lo Xo-Xa Mat national part in the southern province of Tay Ninh in August 2011. The so-called Sua Da population was found by a team including François Mey, Alastair Robinson and Luu Hong Truong, from the Vietnam Tropical Biology Institute in HCM City City, and was estimated to number fewer than 100 individuals. The discovery was announced online by Alastair Robinson on August 6, 2011.

Source: VNN