EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Khasi Pitcher Plant by the Roadside

Khasi Pitcher Plant (Nepenthes khasiana), Family Nepenthaceae
Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, Northeast India

Explanation:  Prominent amidst a tangle of ferns is this wonder of the botanical world, the carnivorous Khasi pitcher plant of northeast India.  

Endemic to these remote hills in India's state of Meghalaya, this species has been widely collected and its habitat widely disturbed to the point of great threat to the survival of the species.  In response, the Government of India has established a reserve for the species and banned its export.

The genus Nepenthes consists of some 90 species found in the India subcontinent, Australia, Madagascar, and southeast Asia.  

This particular species is found only in the Khasi and nearby hills of Meghalaya, which itself is an ancient eroded offshoot of the Himalayas bordering Assam to the north and Bangladesh to the south.   

Khasi pitcher plants, like others species of its kin, form from modified leaves that retain a pool of water that traps its insect prey.  

 

The modified leaf that forms the pitcher also thins into a tendril that wraps around other plants for structural support.

 

Although it is likely threatened by collection and habitat loss, I was rather surprised to find a local profusion of these amazing plants growing alongside the roadcut on a local paved roadway in the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya!  

 
Left: A tangle of plants, including ferns, growing along a roadcut in northeast India.
Right:  Khasi pitcher plants there seemed associated with thickets of ferns
and dense ground moss (cf. Bryoria).

A collection of "newborn" Khasi pitcher plants
sprouting from a dense bed of ground moss
on a roadcut in the Khasi Hills.

Gently displaying, but not removing,
this pitcher, my Indian colleague
shows how the strongly-ribbed
leaf of the plant modifies itself
into the pitcher and lid.

Apparently, at least some of the younger pitchers more exposed to direct sunlight along the roadcut habitat have a reddish tinge.

Whether the roadcut "habitat" for the species is just an anomaly, or represents that the species may be more tolerant of disturbance than previously thought -- as long as it is not heavily collected and removed -- is unknown.  I can only hope that the tiny population we discovered along the roadside is viable and sign that this remarkable species will persist.