A pitcher plant in Cambodia is making rounds on social media due to its phallus-like shape and women have been picking it to feature in their video logs. However, the picking of the plant has the country's Ministry of Environment concerned because it might drive the odd-looking plant into extinction.
The Nepenthes bokorensis is also known as the "carnivorous penis plant" because its appearance and feeding habits are common in most pitcher plants. It has a long shaft-like tube to draw the insects that might come close and a curved lid that completes its phallus-like appearance.
Lower pitchers of Nepenthes bokorensis
Carnivorous Pitcher Plant in Cambodia Has An Odd Shape
According to Live Science, the pitcher plant famous for its odd-looking shape is Nepenthes bokorensis, a pitcher plant that has modified leaves to lure and trap insects using its sweet nectar. Its phallic resemblance is most pronounced at its developing stage when the pitcher is still closed.
Botanical instructor François Mey told the news outlet that the bokorensis pitcher smells as sweet as candy. It has vines to climb and can grow up to 20 feet (up to 7 meters), making them noticeable.
They mostly grow in low-nutrient soil and feed on ants that crawl around their peristome or the rim of their tube. Insects usually slip and drown in the digestive fluids inside the tube before being ingested. Mey formally described Nepenthes bokorensis in 2009. However, the plant species have already been known by locals since the early 20th century.
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Carnivorous Pitcher Plant Classified as Potentially Vulnerable to Extinction
The Ministry of Environment of Cambodia has posted a warning on Facebook that read, "What they are doing is wrong and they should not do it again in the future. Thank you for loving natural resources, but do not pick the flowers, or they will be ruined."
Mey wrote in a paper that Nepenthes bokorensis is threatened by clearing the land in Cambodia that will be used for private development.
A 2021 study in the Cambodian Journal of Natural History has shown that the natural habitats of carnivorous plants in Cambodia have declined due to agricultural expansion and tourism growth in protected areas of the country. Due to the said factors, Mey has described the plant as potentially vulnerable to extinction.
He cautioned the interested public that although it is fun to pose and take selfies with the plants, they should not pick them because it weakens the plant, which uses its pitcher to feed.
The carnivorous pitcher plant is endemic to Cambodia, but plant enthusiasts in the UK have also grown them. For instance, the Southampton-based company Hampshire Carnivorous Plants has listed Nepenthes bokorensis as one of its plants for sale, advertising it as a very easy species to grow and has a nice striped peristome with a beautiful pitcher.
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