Plants of Borneo

A free field guide to Borneo's plants — 77 species across the island's rainforest trees, carnivorous pitcher plants, parasitic Rafflesia, orchids, gingers, ferns, palms and epiphytes, each with photographs and identification notes where available. Nothing to buy and nothing to sign up for.

What Borneo's plant list looks like

Borneo's rainforest is built around towering dipterocarp trees — Meranti, Kapur, Keruing and the giant emergent Tualang, some of the tallest tropical broadleaf trees in the world — alongside strangler figs, wild relatives of durian and jackfruit, and swamp specialists like the Sago and Nibung Palms. The island is also one of the world's centres of Nepenthes pitcher plant diversity, home to the extraordinary montane endemics of Mount Kinabalu including the giant Rajah Pitcher Plant and the mammal-feeding Low's Pitcher Plant, and to several species of Rafflesia, the parasitic plant with the world's largest single flower.

Beyond the trees and pitcher plants, this guide covers Borneo's showier orchids and gingers — including the giant Tiger Orchid and the striking Torch Ginger — plus ferns, spikemosses and the ant-plant epiphytes that grow high in the canopy.

Where to find them

Mount Kinabalu is the single best site for montane pitcher plants and orchids, with the Rajah, Hairy and Kinabalu Pitcher Plants all found along its upper trails. Lowland dipterocarp forest across Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan holds the tallest trees and the widest range of fruiting trees important to wildlife, while peat swamp and heath forest are the places to look for lowland pitcher plants, Ramin and the Sago and Nibung Palms.

All 77 species