Nepenthes robcantleyi | prev. truncata - Queen of Hearts x King of Spades | 6 - 10 cm

The female parent of the grex that gives rise to this item has the cultivar name ‘Queen of Hearts’ and is very probably the most photographed Nepenthes in history, having appeared on many of our gold medal winning Chelsea Flower show exhibits. The male parent has the cultivar name ‘King of Spades’, which darker in overall colouration than the ‘Queen of Hearts’ and has green peristome wings.

In the late 1990s we bred two of the only nine plants in cultivation of what at that time was one of the rarest of all Nepenthes. The area where seed had been collected which gave rise to the original nine plants was devastated by logging activities in the 1990s and Nepenthes robcantleyi is now critically endangered in the wild. For some years we labelled these plants as a black form of Nepenthes truncata, although there were clearly striking taxonomical differences between these plants and the published description of Nepenthes truncata as well as other Nepenthes truncata observed in that part of Mindanao. 

In December 2011, Nepenthes robcantleyi was described in the Nordic Journal of Botany as a distinct species in its own right, by Dr. Martin Cheek, a senior taxonomist with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. The publication gives the history of this species in cultivation and the reason why the name Nepenthes robcantleyi was chosen. If you wish to download the entire paper, you can do so here (for a fee).

Over more than 20 years and starting well before its description as a new species, we have raised many tens of thousands of plants originating from seeds produced from six of the nine plants that were raised from the original seed collection. In addition, at one time we kept 550 different clones in microprop and planted out and raised them all. We have seen very little variation in pitcher colouration and importantly, almost none in morphology, which rules out any significant possibility of hybrid origin and so therefore this is a true and stable species.

The photos show a mixture of newly-opened and more mature pitchers. When freshly opened, the pitchers are a rich chocolate brown that gradually darken to nearly black as they mature.

History: First introduced to cultivation in 1998 and commercially released as ‘black truncata around 2001.

Origin: Horticultural, bred by Borneo Exotics from specimen parent plants.

Source: A random selection from 550 different clones out of microprop.

Photo notes: Photos are of representative clones and may not be identical to plants shipped.