Rajah Pitcher Plant
The Rajah pitcher plant (Nepenthes rajah) is a giant carnivorous plant of the high slopes of Mount Kinabalu and neighboring mountains in Borneo.
The Rajah pitcher plant (Nepenthes rajah) is a giant carnivorous plant of the high slopes of Mount Kinabalu and neighboring mountains in Borneo. Its pitchers can hold several liters of fluid and are large enough to trap small vertebrates. The IUCN lists it as Endangered (assessed in 2000).
🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open Rajah Pitcher Plant in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Diaphoretickes lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.
A Trap Made From a Leaf
The pitcher is a modified leaf tip, with a slippery rim (peristome) that insects slide off to fall into digestive fluid. The plant lives in poor soils and gets nitrogen and phosphorus from its catch. See Venus Flytrap.
A Toilet for Tree Shrews
Mountain tree shrews lick sweet nectar on the pitcher lid. The size of the pitcher is such that the animals position themselves over the opening, and their droppings fall in. The plant gets nutrients from the feces, a mutualism.
Rare and Poached
The plant is restricted to a few ultramafic soils on mountains and is vulnerable to collection for horticulture, fires and tourism.
Rajah Pitcher Plant at a Glance
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Scientific name | Nepenthes rajah |
| Kingdom | Plantae |
| Phylum | Tracheophyta |
| Class | Magnoliopsida |
| Order | Caryophyllales |
| Family | Nepenthaceae |
| Field Guide group | Diaphoretickes: Plants & Algae |
| Diagnostic feature (Field Guide) | Enormous urn-shaped digestive leaf pitchers holding up to 3.5 liters of fluid, mutualistic excretion toilet for tree shrews. |
| IUCN Red List status | Endangered (EN), assessed 2000 |
| Fluid capacity | Up to several liters |