Nepenthes northiana /nɪˈpɛnθiːz ˌnɔːrθiˈɑːnə/, or Miss North's pitcher-plant,[4] is a tropical pitcher plant endemic to Borneo, where it grows at elevations ranging from 0 to 500 m above sea level.

[6] In her autobiography Recollections of a Happy Life, the first edition of which bears a gilt outline of N. northiana on its cover, North wrote the following account of the species's discovery:[7] "Mr E. [Everett] went up a mountain near and brought me down some grand trailing specimens of the largest of all pitcher-plants, which I festooned round the balcony by its yards of trailing stems.

I painted a portrait of the largest, and my picture afterwards induced Mr Veitch to send a traveller to seek the seeds, from which he raised plants and Sir Joseph Hooker named the species Nepenthes northiana.

"The type description, published in The Gardeners' Chronicle, further elaborated on the discovery:[2][4] "The specimen from which Miss North's drawing was made was procured by Mr. Herbert Everett of the Borneo Company, who "traversed pathless forests amid snakes and leeches to find and bring it down to the artist."

In an 1882 issue of The Gardeners' Chronicle, Frederick William Burbidge proposed that the taxon represented a natural hybrid between N. sanguinea and N. veitchii:[9] "Your figure of Nepenthes Northiana was very good.

I had the latitude and longitude of its habitat in my portfolio when I left Chelsea for Borneo, but unfortunately never had the chance of seeing Sarawak; my lot was the wild north-west coast, among the pirate chiefs, and very good genial fellows I found them !"

Subsequent authors realised that Burbidge's hybrid hypothesis was erroneous when it became apparent that N. sanguinea is altogether absent from Borneo.

[6] In his Handleiding tot de kennis der flora van Nederlandsch Indië of 1900, Jacob Gijsbert Boerlage mentioned a certain N. nordtiana.

[6] The next major taxonomic treatment of the species came in 1908, when John Muirhead Macfarlane revised the genus in his monograph, "Nepenthaceae", and provided an emended description of N. northiana.

3, 4 and 21⁄2 cm broad, the mouth is very oblique, occupying about half the height of the pitcher, the lid has one median keel, but is crumpled, and the form, though not well visible, seems to be that of N. decurrens."

Subsequent authors have not considered these differences to be sufficient for species status and N. decurrens is now treated as a heterotypic synonym of N. northiana.

The seeds of N. northiana are quite atypical of the genus in that they have short appendages, a large embryo, and are unusually woody in texture.

[20] Nepenthes northiana generally grows in exposed sites on near-vertical limestone cliffs with permanent water seepage.

In their 1996 monograph Pitcher-Plants of Borneo, Anthea Phillipps and Anthony Lamb wrote that N. northiana "has been over-collected nearly to the point of extinction".

[20] Nepenthes northiana is very similar to N. mapuluensis, a species known from only a handful of limestone peaks in East Kalimantan, on the other side of Borneo.

[20][26] It is also worth noting that N. northiana is known only from the Bau area of Sarawak, which lies several hundred kilometres away from the only known populations of N. mapuluensis.

[22][30] The two species have a similarly shaped lamina and petiole, but N. northiana differs in that the climbing stem can be triangular in cross section, as opposed to strictly cylindrical in N. macrovulgaris.

[15] Nepenthes × cincta is a rare plant and, due to the localised distribution of N. northiana, only grows at a few sites in Bau, Sarawak, usually on a substrate of limestone.

The traits of N. albomarginata are very dominant in this hybrid; the wide flared peristome of its larger parent species (N. northiana) is almost completely lost.

Pitchers are narrowly infundibulate (funnel-shaped) throughout and range in colouration from cream to dusky purple with red or black spots.

It displays the clumping habit and vine growth of N. gracilis, but can be distinguished from that species on the basis of its larger leaves and stems.

[32] Like its parent species, N. × bauensis is a lowland plant that grows at an elevation of around 100 m. It is terrestrial in nature and inhabits swampy areas surrounding the limestone hills to which N. northiana is endemic.

[35] It appears to grow well in low light conditions, with direct sunlight resulting in brown patches of dead tissue on the leaves and a decline or cessation in pitcher production.

[35] In The Savage Garden: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants, Peter D'Amato writes that peat and Sphagnum moss stunt the growth of N. northiana.

[35] Folia mediocria sessilia, lamina elliptica v. obovata, nervis longitudinalibus utrinque 4, basi lata semiamplexicauli in alas 2 decurrente; ascidia rosularum ignota; ascidia inferiora subovata, alis 2 fimbriatis; peristomio applanato v. expanso, 10-50 mm lato, costis crebris, dentibus brevibus; operculo ovato-oblongo, facie inferiore non appendiculato; ascidia superiora infundibuliformia, alis 2 angustis fimbriatis, peristomio angustiore quam in ascidiis inferioribus, costis crebris, operculo angustiore quam in ascidiis inferioribus, facie inferiore inappendiculata; inflorescentia racemus longus pedicellis 2-4 mm longis 2- v. 1-floris; indumentum parcum (v. 0 ?

).Folia mediocria petiolata, lanceolata, nervis longitudinalibus utrinque 5-6, vagina in alas 2 basi peltatas decurrente; ascidia rosularum et inferiora ignota; ascidia superiora magna, tubulosa v. infundibuliformia; parte inferiore costis 2 prominentibus, os versus alis 2 fimbriatis; peristomio expanso, 25-60 mm lato, costis c. 1 mm distantibus, dentibus vix longioribus quam latis; operculo ovato, facie inferiore plana v. prope basin obtuse carinata; inflorescentia racemus longus pedicellis longis fere omnibus 2-floris; indumentum in caulibus foliisque fere 0, in ascidiis adpressum parcum in inflorescentiis tenue densum ferrugineum.