Species
+

Nepenthes ampullaria Jack

flask-shaped pitcher plant

Climate known 58 photographs Carnivorous plant
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Nepenthes ampullaria is a very distinctive and widespread species of tropical pitcher plant, present in Borneo, the Maluku Islands, New Guinea, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatra, and Thailand.

Text from Wikipedia, “Nepenthes ampullaria”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Nepenthes

Nepenthes is a genus of carnivorous plants, also known as tropical pitcher plants, or monkey cups, in the monotypic family Nepenthaceae. The genus includes about 170 species, and numerous natural and many cultivated hybrids. They are mostly liana-forming plants of the Old World tropics, ranging from South China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines; westward to Madagascar and the Seychelles (one); southward to Australia (four) and New Caledonia (one); and northward to India (one) and Sri Lanka (one). More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Nepenthes”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Nepenthaceae
Described by
Jack
Native to
Thailand, Borneo, Malaya +3
Wild records
877 in range· 251 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
May, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
3296mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Dec 364 mm (CHELSA)
Light
28–34DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a carnivorous plant by the genus Nepenthes, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to January and March to May at the habitat (not shifted)). Habitat rain 3296 mm a year, wettest December at 364 mm, driest June at 206 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 28 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 22.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Nepenthes ampullacea Jack; Nepenthes ampullacea Low; Nepenthes ampullacea var. picta Rafarin; Nepenthes ampullacea var. vittata Rafarin; Nepenthes ampullaria var. geelvinkiana Becc. and 10 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a carnivorous plant by the genus Nepenthes, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to January and March to May at the habitat (not shifted)).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (2421 mm of 3296 mm) takes 8 months, September to January and March to May. Mean temperature moves 1.1 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere, within 10° of the equator; with no thermal season there there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 3296 mm a year, wettest December at 364 mm, driest June at 206 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

3296 mm a year at the habitat, 2421 mm of it September to January and March to May. Wettest month December at 364 mm, driest June at 206 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 2541 mm to 4643 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 28 to 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 28 to 34 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 25, the highest 90th-percentile month 37).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 22.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 22.7 °C, the absolute minimum 21.3 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 22.8 °C in January (across the envelope cells 19.2 °C to 24.6 °C), warmest day 29.6 °C in May (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 22.7 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 67 to 70% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 28 °C in Jan to 30 °C in May; mean night from 23 °C in Jan to 24 °C in May. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 3296 mm of rain a year, most in Dec. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 391 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 21.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.15°20°25°30°35°29.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)21.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0200400600800mm rainDLI 28–34RH 67–70 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 391 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C28 / 26–2929 / 26–3029 / 27–3029 / 27–3130 / 27–3130 / 26–3129 / 26–3030 / 26–3129 / 26–3129 / 27–3029 / 26–3028 / 26–29
Night °C23 / 19–2523 / 19–2523 / 20–2524 / 20–2524 / 20–2623 / 19–2623 / 19–2523 / 19–2523 / 19–2523 / 19–2523 / 19–2523 / 19–25
Rain mm316 / 207–711235 / 133–532279 / 187–420286 / 174–408252 / 190–359206 / 145–301215 / 134–321219 / 133–316270 / 169–378310 / 215–417344 / 228–475364 / 247–590
DLI29 / 27–3232 / 30–3633 / 30–3733 / 29–3732 / 29–3532 / 29–3432 / 29–3534 / 31–3633 / 31–3632 / 29–3429 / 26–3228 / 25–31
RH %69 / 66–7268 / 65–7169 / 65–7169 / 66–7269 / 66–7268 / 65–7067 / 64–7067 / 64–6968 / 64–7069 / 65–7170 / 67–7270 / 67–73

Each figure is the median across the 391 grid cells holding the 740 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1691:5605 (5.425, 100.275). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 21.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 22.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.0 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 391 distinct grid cells holding the 740 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1691:5605 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 5.50_100.000, lapse-corrected +337 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 346 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeThailand, Borneo, Malaya, Maluku, Sumatera, New Guinea
Kew's description“liana” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker1.55, 110.333 · in the densest population, 574 records (65% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 877 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 251 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 190 km away. 5 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 137 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 877 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Nepenthes ampullariaNepenthes ampullariaNepenthes ampullariaNepenthes ampullariaNepenthes ampullariaNepenthes ampullariaNepenthes ampullariaNepenthes ampullaria

Photographs: (c) Gijs Romijn, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Bernard DUPONT, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Caleb Catto, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Nepenthes ampullaria, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Traps of carnivorous pitcher plants as a habitat: composition of the fluid, biodiversity and mutualistic activities
Wolfram Adlassnig, Marianne Peroutka, Thomas Lendl (2010) · Annals of Botany
From Carnivore to Detritivore? Isotopic Evidence for Leaf Litter Utilization by the Tropical Pitcher Plant Nepenthes ampullaria
Jonathan A. Moran, Charles Clarke, B. J. Hawkins (2003) · International Journal of Plant Sciences
Nutritional benefit from leaf litter utilization in the pitcher plant Nepenthes ampullaria
Andrej Pavlovič, Ľudmila Slováková, Jiří Šantrůček (2011) · Plant Cell & Environment
Iso-Seq analysis of Nepenthes ampullaria , Nepenthes rafflesiana and Nepenthes × hookeriana for hybridisation study in pitcher plants
Muhammad Mu’izzuddin Zulkapli, Muhammad Aqil Fitri Rosli, Faris ‘Imadi Mohd Salleh, Normah Mohd Noor (2017) · Genomics Data
Mass spectrometry data of metabolomics analysis of Nepenthes pitchers
Muhammad Aqil Fitri Rosli, Kamalrul Azlan Azizan, Syarul Nataqain Baharum, Hoe‐Han Goh (2017) · Data in Brief
RNA-seq Analysis of Nepenthes ampullaria
Wan-Nor-Adibah Wan Zakaria, Kok-Keong Loke, Muhammad-Mu'izzuddin Zulkapli, Faris-'Imadi Mohd Salleh (2016) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Biosorption of copper by endophytic fungi isolated fromNepenthes ampullaria
Changi Wong, Lee Tung Tan, Aazani Mujahid, Samuel Lihan (2018) · Letters in Applied Microbiology

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Nepenthes 174 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 16 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.