John Pilbeam discusses a selection of cristate plants and some oddities that produce unusually reduced spination.

Succulent Tissue Culture" Laboratory is situated in the Netherlands, south of Rotterdam. The Laboratory, lead by Robert Wellens, performs propagation of rare and endangered species of cacti and other succulent plants using in vitro technology.

In both crests and monstrose plants something has gone wrong with the cellular structure of the growth tip (apical meristem) of the plant. Variegates can be found in many genera. Gymnocalycium are the most often seen, but some columnar variegates and some Ferocactus variegates are also common in cultivation. The odd variegate appears in many seedling batches.

In the Issue 2(18) we wrote about a recently discovered monotypic genus Digitostigma caput-medusae. Just a few months after this discovery, David Hunt transfers the plant into the genus Astrophytum. Hunt proposes to keep the existing species name of caput-medusae. Hence the current name of the plant is Astrophytum caput-medusae (Latin for the star-plant with jellyfish head).

Cactus Art Nursery was started three years ago by cactus enthusiast Valentino Vallicelli (Italy). On his web site he tells about his experience with Opuntia compressa as a grafting stock. Opuntia compressa is a very healthy, frost- and wet-resistant species. It is a long lasting, nearly invisible stock suited for all small globular cacti and also useful for monstrose and crested forms.

In issue 1(17) we introduced you to the work of Eddie Esteves Pereira of Brazil. Today we continue our story and will show you marvelous Brazilian succulents of the Bromeliaceae family – Bromelia, Dyckia, Encholirium and Orthophytum.

The Informational Portal www.TopTropicals.com that has just issued a new online edition "UKROP.info", devoted to problems of indoor cultivation of tropical exotic plants.

Comments from the President of the Society Valery Serovaiskiy

Among the Club's goals there are: teaching the natural sciences, popularization of household plants by holding plant shows, studying practical floriculture, introduction of new plants into window gardening.

Dear readers,

Because of hard disk failure I lost some materials including some e-mail addresses of the subscribers to the mailing list. I ask all subscribers who have not received my announcement (and those who wish to remove e-mail address from the list) to let me know via Subscription page.

We are asking you to send us photographs of your plants with names or without them, especially colored and flowering cultivars. We will try to summarize the results and report them in the next issues of our magazine. Please don't assume that many people have similar plants and it will be done by somebody else. Please let it be you! The more photographs we have, the easier it is to identify the species and their names. You can read more about this initiative in the article "Problematic cultivars".

We thank all the readers who sent us stories and photos of interesting plants from their collections. New stories and photos are always welcome!

Valery Kalishev, Editor in Chief