Once, while admiring the many species of Nepenthes in a Malaysian carnivorous plant garden, I could never have imagined that I would one day see one of the pitcher plants in its natural habitat, in a pine forest just a ten-minute walk from our home. It is even more curious to see the reaction of my friends, amateur botanists, who stand in awe, leaning over a Nepenthes growing not in a humid tropical forest, but under pine trees, on a bright, dry slope of a hill or at its almost treeless, sunny top. These hills are mesmerizing, dotted with colonies of Nepenthes smilesii of all sizes, from tiny ones with small, thimble-like pitchers to large ones whose pitchers can hold a glass of water. There are enormous red, barrel-shaped pitchers, narrow and elegant yellow-green ones, and their intermediate variations... Pitchers on the ground, with short stems, or long, climbing plants winding through tall grass and shrubs. They are remarkably adapted to both cool mountain weather and prolonged sunny dry seasons. It is also interesting to see their small, burgundy flowers on long peduncles, somewhat similar to tiny orchids.

In the cups formed by their modified leaves, rainwater accumulates, helping the plants survive challenging dry days. According to our observations, mosquito larvae and other insects live fearlessly in the pitchers, they have time to develop into their adult form. So, Nepenthes smilesii can hardly be called an unambiguously predatory species, although their shape and coloring suggest otherwise.