Species
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Nepenthes sumatrana (Miq.) Beck

Nepenthaceae

Climate known 8 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 sumatrana is a tropical pitcher plant endemic to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, after which it is named.

Text from Wikipedia, “Nepenthes sumatrana”, 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
(Miq.) Beck
Native to
Sumatera
Wild records
20 in range· 2 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
May, mean day; nights 20 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
3815mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Nov 403 mm (CHELSA)
Light
27–33DLI
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 April at the habitat (not shifted)). Habitat rain 3815 mm a year, wettest November at 403 mm, driest June at 211 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 27 to 33 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 18.8 °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 boschiana var. sumatrana Miq.; Nepenthes longifolia Nerz & Wistuba; Nepenthes maxima var. sumatrana (Miq.) Becc.; Nepenthes spinosa Tamin & M.Hotta; Nepenthes sumatrana (Miq.) Beck ex Tamin & M.Hotta and 1 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 April 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 (2805 mm of 3815 mm) takes 8 months, September to April. Mean temperature moves 1.3 °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 3815 mm a year, wettest November at 403 mm, driest June at 211 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

3815 mm a year at the habitat, 2805 mm of it September to April. Wettest month November at 403 mm, driest June at 211 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 2999 mm to 5144 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: 27 to 33 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 27 to 33 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 24, the highest 90th-percentile month 35).

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 18.8 °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 18.8 °C, the absolute minimum 17.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 19.6 °C in July (across the envelope cells 17.4 °C to 22.7 °C), warmest day 28.1 °C in May (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 18.8 °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 72% 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 26 °C in Jan to 28 °C in May; mean night from 20 °C in Jul to 20 °C in Apr. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 3815 mm of rain a year, most in Nov. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 12 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 17.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.2 °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°29.2° 99th-percentile day (undated)17.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 27–33RH 67–72 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 12 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 °C26 / 24–2827 / 25–2928 / 25–2928 / 25–2928 / 25–2928 / 25–2928 / 25–2828 / 25–2828 / 25–2827 / 24–2827 / 24–2827 / 24–28
Night °C20 / 17–2320 / 17–2320 / 18–2320 / 18–2320 / 18–2320 / 18–2320 / 17–2320 / 18–2320 / 18–2320 / 18–2320 / 18–2320 / 18–23
Rain mm312 / 265–386284 / 209–392348 / 294–482364 / 295–463277 / 217–384211 / 157–278270 / 171–379252 / 154–385342 / 225–473385 / 280–557403 / 314–552367 / 319–473
DLI29 / 26–3333 / 30–3532 / 29–3432 / 28–3532 / 29–3433 / 30–3432 / 29–3333 / 29–3432 / 28–3530 / 26–3428 / 24–3127 / 25–30
RH %70 / 68–7369 / 67–7170 / 69–7271 / 69–7269 / 67–7168 / 66–6968 / 66–6967 / 66–7169 / 67–7270 / 68–7371 / 69–7372 / 69–73

Each figure is the median across the 12 grid cells holding the 12 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 1813:5621 (-0.675, 101.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 17.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 18.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.2 °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 12 distinct grid cells holding the 12 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1813:5621 (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 -0.50_101.250, lapse-corrected +165 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 438 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.
NativeSumatera
Kew's description“climbing shrub or liana” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker1.74, 98.784 · in the densest population, 11 records (55% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 20 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 2 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 21 km away. 8 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 of the 20 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Nepenthes sumatranaNepenthes sumatranaNepenthes sumatranaNepenthes sumatranaNepenthes sumatranaNepenthes sumatranaNepenthes sumatrana

Photographs: Naturalis Biodiversity Center, CC0 via GBIF (5); Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, BY via GBIF · 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 sumatrana, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Five new taxa of Nepenthes (Nepenthaceae) from North and West Sumatra.
Joachim Nerz, Andreas Wistuba (1994) · Carnivorous Plant Newsletter
NUTRIENT CONCENTRATIONS IN THREE NEPENTHES SPECIES (NEPENTHACEAE) FROM NORTH SUMATRA
Muhammad Mansur, Andi Salamah, Edi Mirtanto, Francis Q Brearly (2022) · REINWARDTIA
NUTRIENT CONCENTRATIONS IN THREE NEPENTHES SPECIES (NEPENTHACEAE) FROM NORTH SUMATRA
Muhammad Mansur, Andi Salamah, Edi Mirtanto, Francis Q Brearly (2022) · REINWARDTIA
Predicting habitat suitability of critically endangered Nepenthes sumatrana
Angga Yudaputra (2021) · IOP Conference Series Earth and Environmental Science
Konservasi Ex Situ Kantong Semar (Nepenthes sumatrana (Miq) Beck) pada Beberapa Media Tanam Menggunakan Metode Split Anakan
Ryan Budi Setiawan, Rizah Rizwana Wahyuni, Arif Kurniawan (2017) · JAGUR - Jurnal Agroteknologi
Nepenthes sumatrana: Clarke, C.M.
IUCN (2013) · IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

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 not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: not asked: 8 wild photographs already from the GBIF download
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 answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
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 6 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.