Pitcher Plants Pretty as a Picture

Pretty as a picture
By Anthony Law
Thursday January 10, 2008

Cups of prosperity: Lim Ah Keat admiring the fruits of his labour - beautiful pitcher plants - at his nursery at Bercham, Ipoh.

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PITCHER plants or “monkey cups”, believed to bring prosperity to the owners, have been keeping Lim Ah Keat and his son busy at their nursery.

Known to thrive well in the jungles, the pitcher plants are now being nurtured via tissue culture at Kooi Lam Nursery at Bercham in Ipoh.

Ah Keat’s son Dared Lim Seck Chai, a Material Science graduate from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, said he had been helping his father at the nursery with the tissue culture.

Booming business: Ah Keat and Seck Chai checking the pitcher plants.

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“Cultivated from the leaves of the plant, the young tissue matures into the size of an ordinary plant within two months,” said the 29-year-old Seck Chai.

Seck Chai explained that the cups of the pitcher plant attracted and trapped insects, adding that the plants fed on the trapped insects.

However, monkeys in the wild would drink water trapped in the cups, thus giving the pitcher plant the name “monkey cup”, he said, adding that its scientific name was Nepenthes.

Seck Chai said his pitcher plants could live up to 20 years and they were grown in pots at the nursery, which his father had operated for the past 30 years.



Ah Keat, 60, used to supply fruit seedlings and other plants before going into the pitcher plant business.

The nursery has over 10 different species of pitcher plants.

Some of the plants come from Cameron Highlands, the Netherlands, Belgium, Taiwan and the Philippines.

Seck Chai said the pitcher plants were popular especially during the festive season.

“Pitcher is supposed to be a favourable feng shui plant,” he said, adding that his customers would buy the plant for their homes and offices.



“Pitchers are believed to be significant as the cups hold water which means wealth or money,” Seck Chai said.

He said he was first attracted to the cups of the plants and started to grow them commercially.

The plants, which had more pitchers or cups, were considered more valuable, he said.

Ah Keat said the plants were sought after particularly during the Chinese New Year and that he expected a boom in sales.

“Pitcher plants are an endangered species but this can be prevented with the use of tissue culture,” Ah Keat said.

Direct use of fertilisers on the plant would burn the roots of the plant, he said.

“But if you are hard working, you can feed the plant by placing small insects into the cup.” -- The Star Metro