In this issue you can find the story about Nikolay Fedukin, a cactus enthusiast from Moscow who tries not to miss a single emerging mutant among his sowings. The article contains 18 photos.

The next article is about Elena Simonova, Ust-Labinsk, Krasnodar region, Russia. She is especially fond of unusual appearance of plants: crested and monstrous forms, species that develop beautiful clusters, unusual spines, and wool. She has a special attention to the color forms.

The third article in this issue is about Vladimir Murashov, Chelyabinsk, Russia. Principal engineer at one of the big plants, he has been a cactus enthusiast for 23 years. There are about 500 taxons in his collection. Among Vladimir's priorities there are cristate forms, which belong to 20 genera and 32 species/subspecies. You can find the entire list of these plants in Cultivar Issue #4(5).

The questions of Cactaceae taxonomy attract attention of cactus amateurs both in Russia and other countries. In this issue of CULTIVAR we reprint a very interesting list of cacti synonyms (from "Cacti, The Illustrated Encyclopedia" by Preston-Mapham). There are 1724 names in this list.

And finally, you are welcome to watch the photo-report about cacti exhibition of Russian Organization for Investigations in Cacti and Other Xerophyte Plants (ROIKS) in the State Darwin Museum, Moscow, spring, 2002.

We would like to remind to all readers of our electronic magazine, that we are very glad to receive any of your responses and materials for the possible publication on our pages.

Walery Kalishev, Chelyabinsk, Russia, mailto: e-mail