Description & Care

This is a fantastic hybrid between the easy-to-grow highlander Nepenthes ventricosa and the beautifully bizarre Nepenthes lowii. Also known as N. × briggsiana, it’s a very fast grower which holds many pitchers at once. I regularly have to prune mine, as you’ll see from the photos!

The plant’s tough red pitchers inherit the wide open mouth and attractively striped peristome which often characterise N. lowii hybrids. It produces very thick green leaves, vines rapidly, and produces many basal offshoots.

This cross and the reverse, N. ventricosa x lowii, have been created many times over the last 30 years. The original was made in the 1990s by Johannes Marabini, and some of the most famous cultivars including “Peter D’Amato” and “Hortus Botanicus” came from this grex. Exotica Plants in Australia has also created this cross at least once. These plants were highly coveted and would often sell for hundreds. Recently, though, a Dutch nursery put a new clone of this hybrid - frequently sold as N. lowii x ventricosa ‘red’ - into tissue culture, and this has lowered prices dramatically.