by Valery Kalishev

We have been speaking for a long time of the necessity of bringing the names of many cacti and succulents cultivars (especially colored ones) in conformity with the rules of The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants. There are also problems with exact determination of the species diversity of colored cultivars as well as with their official registration. Our attempts to find an official bulletin for registered cultivars were unsuccessful. Does it exist at all? At the same time every year there appear new forms of cultivars. Many of them once propagated spread all over the countries and continents. The proof of that is the list of cultivar photos published in our magazine and photos on the sites of the succulents traders.

We realize the complicacy of the problem and are ready to help solve it to the best of our abilities. We are not going to substitute the official organs, national magazines, centers of selection, scientific organizations and national clubs. Our aim is rather modest: we want to involve those amateurs and professionals who own cultivars in the process of describing and photographing them. The results of such a work may be written down in the form of a bulletin and published on the pages of Cultivar. All official organs may freely use the information published.

Our magazine will not be engaged in official registration of colored cultivars. We intend to:

1. Collect all the information about registered colored cultivars. We can't start registration without data on cultivars registered in other countries. It will help to avoid duplication.
2. Give short descriptions of colored cultivars whose photos we published for last two years.
3. Continue to collect information about novelties.
4. Contact and cooperate with all national cultivar registration centers.

First of all we would like to publish the general list of the registered colored forms of succulents. We appeal to all the registering organs with request to send us such a list together with the photos. Because we have no exact addresses of such organs we beg you our readers for assistance. Help us to transfer this information to those persons in your countries who may assist in finding and forwarding us such a list.

We would be thankful to those specialists registering succulent cultivars who would find opportunity to take part in this work as consultants. There are many nuances in the problem of registration unknown to us amateurs and the help of professionals would be most welcome.

Before publication of this article in the journal I sent it to some of the Presidents of the national cactus and succulent societies. A very interesting answer came from Belgium. Here it is:

"In Belgium we are launching a new society : PlantenCollectief vzw.

The aim is to register, appreciate and protect collections of plants. Due to some organizational problems the society is formally not started yet. Nevertheless there some collections named and described and for a first collection the necessary steps to clone an important collection will be taken.

It is our aim to do this first in Belgium with a little dream to expand this later all over Europe. I propose we keep you in touch on the evolution of what we are doing here. You may have interest to do this in Russia too.

Success with the cultivars !
Jef Keymeulen"

In conclusion here is a list of questions to all of you who is going to send us photographs and information about plants from your collection.

1. when the plant was obtained;
2. whether the seedlings appeared by chance or you treated the seeds or seedlings somehow;
3. how many seeds were sown and how many colored (cristate) seedlings you got out of them;
4. whether the plant had had this coloration from the beginning or it had been variegated;
5. if it's possible please make a few additional close-ups - part of the stem and a view from above;
6. please make a short description of the plant including: height, diameter, areoles, spines, number of ribs, stem's color; does it change color with different stocks?
7. how you named the plant;
8. has the photograph of this plant been published in any journal or magazine before (if yes when and the name of magazine);
9. a few words about yourself.