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“AS A CHILD I WAS OBSESSED WITH plants. I conjured up a cloud forest in a fish tank, and grew my favourites: Nepenthes <\/em>\u2013 a genus of carnivorous plants from South-East Asia. I would inhale gulpfuls of its mossy air, close my eyes, and dream I was on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo \u2013 Nepenthes <\/em>capital of the world, and home to the largest of them all: the king pitcher plant (Nepenthes <\/em><\/span>rajah).<\/em><\/p>\n\n That dream came true when I was 21 and made my pilgrimage. At the start of the trail I was fidgety, like an athlete before a race. I met my guide and we set off over the eastern shoulder of the mountain along a trail now closed to the public. But for our footsteps and a babbling stream, the mossmuffled forest was silent. <\/p>\n\n The ascent was tough and my limbs hurt; although I was young and fit, I\u2019d not climbed like that before. But I couldn\u2019t give up \u2013 and every footstep was feeding my growing addiction to plants. I found a small Nepenthes <\/em>festooning the trees along the track: chalices of N. <\/em>tentaculata <\/em>smiling at me from the moss. You know that feeling you get when you drive over a speed bump \u2013 like you\u2019ve left your stomach behind? That\u2019s what I felt then. It was just the warm up. <\/p>\n\n At 2,700m, we joined the summit trail with a stream of climbers wearily making their ascent. Around 20,000 people haul themselves up to the summit of Kinabalu every year to see the sunrise. You can see why: honeyed light pouring over the land 4,000m below \u2013 it\u2019s mesmerising. <\/p>\n\n But my prize wasn\u2019t the views at the top. It was in a mossy forest on the descent: a king pitcher plant on its rocky throne. That afternoon I entered a glade of them, tumbling out of the reeds, hanging from branches, and draped over the moss. I found an impossibly large one, its pitcher the size of a bucket. It was burgundy, velvety as a peach, and had a yawning green mouth. To find a work of nature like this was like nothing I\u2019d felt before. I stared, love-struck. <\/p>\n\n I\u2019ve never forgotten it. Sitting with the plants on that misty mountainside in Borneo was an experience not of this world. And it was to be my destiny. Something stirred inside me that day: I saw then with absolute clarity that I would dedicate my life to chasing plants. <\/p>\n\n Chris Thorogood is author of <\/span>Chasing Plants \u2013 Journeys with a Botanist through Rainforests, Swamps and Mountains <\/em>(Kew Publishing, \u00a325) and deputy director at Oxford Botanic Garden.<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\nABOUT THE AUTHOR <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n