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Headline: Another book on the amazing pitcher plant
Date Posted: 9/9/2004
KOTA KINABALU: The pitcher plants of Borneo, shaped like the human stomach, continue to capture the imagination of the world, because, as a popular Discovery Channel programme puts it: They are built to kill!
Insects and small animals buy their amazingly deceptive beauty.
Once fallen victim to its irresistible colours and shapes, a minefield of sweet glue and downward pointing hairy barricades makes escape impossible. Then the pitcher plant’s true carnivorous nature begins to work.
Many people have wondered how a plant can eat animals. The truth is the cup operates like the human stomach.
It literally secrets a powerful digestive juice that has chemical nature that is almost exactly the same as the hydrochloric acid secreted by the human stomach.
That’s the fantastic survival story of the pitcher plant one that can grow on the poorest and actually poisonous rocks like ultramafic soil.
But the challenge posed by this extreme environmental condition has produced this amazing external food trap that really should be called cup of survival.
While Sabah has some of the biggest and certainly most heart winning pitcher plants in the world, Sarawak actually has more than 25 species compared to Sabah's 20.
Sarawak has also done more to capitalise on its revenue generating ability. New information on this nature treasure trove is likely to help even more.
Datuk Cheong Ek Choon, Director of Sarawak Forestry, last Friday launched a new guidebook entitled "Pitcher Plants of Sarawak", co authored by world renowned Australian Nepenthes expert, Dr Charles Clarke, and Ch'ien Lee of Kuching.
All the pictures were taken in the wild by Ch'ien Lee, who has an in depth knowledge of Sarawak's pitcher plants.
Cheong said Sarawak has "strived" to protect these plants by supporting sustainable utilisation programmes such as tissue culture and placing all Nepenthes species on the protected plant list.
Natural History Publications (Borneo) proprietor, Datuk CL Chan, said the pocket sized book will prove useful to tourism and academic work.
by KAN YAW CHONG
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