Good news! I will eventually post 3 series of Nepenthes diabolica in situ pictures and not 2 as initially announced. I'm sure no one will complain. ;) For those who missed it, the first part can be found here.
This time, the pictures have been provided by friend Andrea Bianchi, main author of Nepenthes diabolica description, a paper published 8 days ago, on October 14th. Here are the references:
Bianchi, A., C.C. Lee, M.R. Golos, F.S. Mey, M. Mansur, Y.M. Mambrasar & A.S. Robinson (2020). Nepenthes diabolica(Nepenthaceae), a new species of toothed pitcher plant from Central Sulawesi. Phytotaxa 464(1): 29–48.
As a reminder, the paper can be found here (drop me a line if you can' access it -my mail address can be found on the blog main page, check the right column).
Andrea has observed the species, formerly known as Nepenthes "red hamata hairy" or later "Nepenthes ronchinii" (a Nomen Nudum- in honor of Italian botanist Luigi Ronchini, Andrea's friend and mentor- used in Andrea's unpublished thesis) in 2016 in Sulawesi in order to gather the much needed info for the species description.
For a long time, N. diabolica has been considered as a strange variant of N. hamata, Sulawesi iconic toothy species. However, quite soon, taxonomists and some enthusiasts alike suspected it could/should be seed as a species in its own right. This is what we eventually established in the paper after a long and sometimes endless process: In 2012, I contacted Chien Lee, discoverer of the species in 2004, to ask permission to describe the species. It was the debut of a 8 year long adventure that included quite a lot of people, all credited in the paper.
As a matter of fact, for the trained eye, N. diabolica can easily be operated from N. hamata even without the pitchers. Give me a mixed lot of 50 regular hamata and regular diabolica all without the pitchers and I will confidently label each one of them. ;-)
Below, for your perusal, is a quote of the paper, the diagnosis paragraphe highlighting the differences between N. diabolica and its putative closest relative N. hamata (unpublished studies will apparently show it is actually closest to N. glabrata/N. pitopangii than to N. hamata itself. Convergent evolution can be really surprising):
"Diagnosis:—Nepenthes diabolica is superficially similar to N. hamata, but has (differences in parentheses) vining stems with larger and ± linear leaves to 22 cm long and 4.5 cm wide (± elliptic leaves to 15 cm long and 2.5 cm wide), a peristome that is more flattened in section and less prominently flanged, with ribs to 4 mm tall that are diminished in size in the upper pitchers (peristome more cylindric in section, ribs to 6 mm tall and typically more prominent in the upper pitchers), intercostal marginal glands that darken conspicuously with age (inconspicuous), pitchers covered with a dense indumentum of soft, crisped, rufous hairs to 3 mm long (inconspicuous or with short, sparse, orange to brown hairs giving rise to a scabrous texture), upper surface of lid generally lacking filaments, sparse if present (filaments numerous, well-developed), lower surface of lid bearing minute, simple hairs (glabrous), upper pitchers bearing prominent wings (wings reduced to ridges), and partial peduncles in females bearing floral bracts (bracts absent)."
A big thank you to Andrea Bianchi for this wonderful gallery! ^^
Stay tuned for part 3/3! ;-)
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