It is known only from coastal areas at low altitude and has been recorded from Dinagat, Samar, and a number of surrounding islets.

[1] The specific epithet viridis is Latin for "green" and refers to the plant's typical yellowish-green pitcher colouration, which is maintained irrespective of sun exposure.

An account of this and other discoveries appeared in a 2008 issue of the German-language periodical, Das Taublatt, where the plant was treated as a green form of N. alata.

[7][8][9] This followed field work by a team comprising Tobias Gieray, Thomas Gronemeyer, Marius Micheler, David Marwinski, and Andreas Wistuba,[7] though only the last three studied N. viridis in situ that year.

Nepenthes viridis was formally described in a 2013 issue of Das Taublatt, the magazine of the German carnivorous plant society, Gesellschaft für fleischfressende Pflanzen im deutschsprachigen Raum.

[1] Among the six describing authors were Marius Micheler, Thomas Gronemeyer, Andreas Wistuba, and David Marwinski, from Germany, and Wally Suarez and Victor B. Amoroso from the Philippines.

[1][10] The specimen is deposited at the Central Mindanao University Herbarium (CMUH), Musuan, Bukidnon, the Philippines.

The fringed wings are restricted to the upper half of the pitcher cup, the lower parts being reduced to a pair of ribs.

The fringe elements are spaced several millimetres apart and the longest (≤1.3 cm) are found in the upper third of the pitcher, near the peristome.

[1] The tiny islets this species inhabits around Dinagat provide striking micro-habitats, often having near-vertical rock walls and highly vegetated tops.

[7] Where present, surrounding vegetation provides support for the plants' scrambling vines, though these may overhang the sheer rock faces, dangling only a few metres from the water.

Exposed to direct sunlight, the dark rock walls can get very hot, and during particularly dry periods any N. viridis plants in close proximity will largely wither, leaving only a few green shoots.

[1] Although Dinagat hosts five other Nepenthes species (N. bellii, N. merrilliana, N. mindanaoensis, N. mirabilis, and N. truncata), these are found in more inland areas and none are known to grow alongside N. viridis.

[14][15][16][17] These species are all endemic to the Philippines and are united by a number of morphological characters, including winged petioles, lids with basal ridges on the lower surface (often elaborated into appendages), and upper pitchers that are usually broadest near the base.

[14][15] Shortly before the N. viridis type description went to print,[18] botanists Martin Cheek and Matthew Jebb published a series of papers splitting N. alata sensu lato into several daughter taxa, including the newly delimited N. alata sensu stricto (restricted to northern Luzon), the newly resurrected N. graciliflora (Bohol, Leyte, Luzon, Mindanao, Mindoro, Panay, Samar, and Sibuyan), as well as the newly described N. negros (Biliran and Negros) and N. ramos (Mindanao).

[1] Though the N. viridis type description made mention of these taxonomic changes, the authors noted that Cheek and Jebb's determinations were based solely on herbarium material and did not involve field research.

as described in B. H. Danser's 1928 monograph, "The Nepenthaceae of the Netherlands Indies",[20][nb 1] and later refined in Stewart McPherson's 2009 work, Pitcher Plants of the Old World.