Another Nepenthes species without a name

The recent years have witnessed a slew of new species descriptions in the Philippines from the genus Nepenthes, in which emerged a clearly Philippine group centered on Nepenthes alata. Historically, the species concept of N. alata itself was overblown and included entities which bear traits that are alien, which contributed to the confusion regarding its limits. Presently, N. alata is understood to be confined only to northern and central Luzon, with scattered populations on the island's eastern seaboard. Nepenthes alata is distinguished by its petiolate leaves, evenly distributed lid glands, a basal lid keel, the presence of indumentum, and fringed pitcher wings that are retained up to the upper pitchers; the species name translates to 'wing' and refers to this character. Photo below illustrates a N. alata in its native habitat, on the province of Ilocos Norte where it was originally found:

The plant featured here bears a strong resemblance to N. alata, but distinct in some features. Furthermore, these plants are said to have originated on Mindanao, but without specific localities mentioned. I have seen one photo of a very similar plant which may indicate the species' provenance, but I am withholding that information here.

Some years ago I began calling these plants as 'long-tendriled alata' or LTA, as an allusion to its most obvious difference from the Luzon species, the elongated tendrils. Like that species, these plants also bear indumentum and a lid keel, although more pronounced.

Not surprisingly, the keel isn't too developed on pitchers from younger rosettes:

This is a dark clone I lost a few years ago. The length of the tendrils is illustrated clearly in the following two photos.

This photo shows the prominent, trigger-shaped basal appendage underneath the lid:

An upper pitcher is shown here. Note how the fringed wings are retained even on upper traps:

 This specimen below is a lot like N. alata in its shape due to the very bulbous base:

A variable species, an all-green variant is shown here:

The male flowers have one- to three-flowered partial peduncles. The most similar species, N. alata, have consistently one-flowered, and shorter, partial peduncles.

One- to two-flowered partial peduncles of the female flowers:

Now here is a photo of a N. alata inflorescence, showing the one-flowered partial peduncles:

I believe that the plant we have here is a distinct entity deserving of species status, but the exact locality remains problematic. Ideally, new Nepenthes species should be described with the benefit of in situ observations. So despite its appearance on a few collections, describing it as a new species should wait until the plants are studied in the wild and some of its most basic facets are settled, including the range of variation and existence of sympatric species which might dilute the purity of the population. 

Nevertheless, I think you will concur that this is quite an interesting plant despite its absence of a name 😉