Nepenthes rajah x burbidgeae BE3865

Nepenthes x alisapurtrana

January 2021. We have only 1 large plant on our bench. Yes, this Nepenthes needs to be repotted!

Introduced Jan 2018. This fabulous natural hybrid was discovered in habitat near Pig Hill, just outside the Kinabalu National Park by Rob Cantley around 1985 and it’s been one of his life’s ambitions ever since to recreate it from legally obtained mother stock. To this day, it remains the largest and possibly the most spectacular hybrid Nepenthes Rob – or perhaps anyone – has ever seen. Only one plant was found and the pitchers were just HUGE! The largest of the pitchers found that memorable day was shipped to the Chelsea Flower Show in London, where it monopolised press attention and was certainly instrumental in helping Adrian Slack to win a Gold medal and a special annual award that year. You can read more about it in the Dec 2000 edition of the ICPS Newsletter at www.borneoexotics.com/files/rajburb.pdf. This amazing plant was left intact, but sadly, subsequently it was reportedly bulldozed away as part of the development of an asparagus farm for a wealthy politician.

Borneo Exotics has worked tirelessly for several decades to recreate this hybrid and have finally succeeded in doing so, using as the female parent a Nepenthes rajah donated in-vitro from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. The pollen donor is one of our Nepenthes burbidgeae, raised from legally collected seeds. The plants offered here are NURSERY SEED-GROWN, so each are individual clones. Upon maturity, they can be expected to be of variable form and size, although all will be colorful. Even amongst the very juvenile individuals we have, variation is already becoming evident. The fun of this is that some of the plants may be as good as or even better than the original plant whose photos are shown in habitat.

Our plants are potted in 4 pots filled with long fiber sphagnum moss and perlite.