Friends, colleagues, enthusiasts of cacti and other succulents! The first printed issue of Cultivar is now available! This is our joint project with a Russian botanical magazine "Sukkulenty/Succulents bilingual".

This issue includes:

• The book format is 17.5x25.5 cm (7x10"), softbound
• 12 original articles mostly about color forms of cacti of Russian authors translated into English;
• 50 pages text and
• 96 color illustrations of plants (in color insertion)

The price is $14 (including shipping to Europe or North America). Contact us for other countries and wholesale prices. Method of payment: PayPal (accepts all major credit cards). For orders and questions write us.

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THE ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE ARTICLES:

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• Colored forms of cacti: their peculiarities, propagation and cultivation (by Valery Kalishev)
  • Article include: History in brief; Achlorophyllous or colored?; How do we get them?; Stem coloring; Living graveyard; How many are they?; Chlorophyll; Their names; Getting offsets; Stocks; Grafting; On their own roots; Dimensions; Do they line long?; Blooming; Pollination; Seeds and seedlings; Propagators... (photo 1.)
• Unusual cacti in Japan (by Larisa Zaitseva)
  • Article include: While it could be said that human beings have adored and used ornamental plants for decorations since human origins, the Japanese have developed and heightened the cultivation of such plants into a real form of art. In Japan affection for plants and flowers is traditional for the people of this country and dates back to ancient times. Many centuries of experience and modern technologies in plant-growing allow the growers in Japan to achieve tremendous success in cultivation of ornamental plants, and this is also true when we speak of cacti and succulents, especially of colored and variegated C&S... (photo 2.)
• How are we to call them? (by Valery Kalishev)
  • Article include: Unfortunately there is no unified nomenclature for colored forms of cacti. That is why in different countries the same forms, mostly of the Japanese selection, are called either by their original Japanese names like 'Hibotan,' 'Nishiki' or by the European names like 'Ruby Ball,' 'Black Botan,' but most often they have no names at all. Even in Holland where thousands of them are grown on commercial basis, available catalogs usually contain only botanical names of the initial genus, Gymnocalycium for example... (photo 3.)
• Endogenous variability of photosynthetic pigments contents in the colored form of Gymnocalycium mihanovichii var. friedrichii 'Multicolor' (by Igor Skoulkin)
  • Article include: Igor Skoulkin work at Botanic garden of the Urals University, Ekaterinburg. He write: "In June 2001 we studied the contents of carotenoids and chlorophyll "a" and "b'' in one five-year-old and six two-year-old CFC 'Multicolor' (that is three-colored yellow-red-green variegated form of Gymnocalycium mihanovichii var. friedrichii..." (photo 4.)
• Homemade forms of colored cacti (by Vitaly Derevaynko)
  • Article include: Most owners of cultivars often ask the same questions: if my colored (or variegated) cacti bloom what shall I do? How do I pollinate them correctly: concolorous with concolorous, concolorous with variegated, concolorous with normal-colored or are there any other combinations? How do I store pollen if my cacti don't bloom simultaneously? When should I gather seeds and sow them? What combination by pollination gives a higher yield of colored plants? I would like to share with you some of my experience in dealing with cultivars... (photo 5.)
• Experiments in obtaining variegated sprouts (by Nikolay Shemorakov)
  • Article include: Trying to discover the most productive method for obtaining variegated forms of cacti, I decided to use mutagens of two kinds: chemicals and radiation. The goal was to understand the effectiveness of each separate mutagen as well as their combination upon the germinating seeds of different cacti species. As a chemical agent I used a water-soluble ferrous salt (CH₃COO)₂FeOH. I used a 1% solution to water the two pots with cacti seeds. The seeds were sown onto the sand with an insignificant share of peat. As a radiation mutagen I made use of the ultra-violet (UV) lamp Q-145 "Medicor"...
• My new colored Gymnocalycium seedlings (by Nikolay Shemorakov)
  • Article include: Seedlings from the UV irradiated seeds. In spring of 2000 I had 5 species of Gymnocalycium seeds and I decided to experiment with them using ultra violet rays... (photo 6.)
• Five curiosities from one pot (by Valery Kalishev)
  • Article include: First of all, this plant has no specific name. But if you think this is a photo collage you are mistaken... (photo 7.)
• Stocks for grafting cacti (by Valery Serovaisky)
  • Article include: As a cacti collector with 30 years of experience I can declare that it is practically impossible to create an interesting collection without grafting. Conditions in our homes differ a lot from those in the Nature that's why only undemanding cacti species can adapt to them. Fortunately this is true for the majority of cacti growing well on their own roots, but a collector always longs for the rare and difficult species. These cacti species are called difficult and rare because they don't grow on their own roots in our homes. That's why such plants are grafted onto the strong stocks... (photo 8.)

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• Variety of colors in leaf succulents (by Peter Lapshin)
  • Article include: Among all the variety of succulents there are very interesting and attractive species and forms not of grey-light blue colouring, but very brightly coloured in red, brown, yellow hues and their combinations, with specks, stripes, various edgings or patterns of additional colours... (photo 9.)
• European diary. Traveling through collections: Donetsk, Ukraine (by Innokenty Sinev and Peter Lapshin)
  • Article include: Acquaintance to a greenhouse of Oleg Illiashenko (some thousand of plants, area is 300 square meters). The owner of this collection - one of the writers of the remarkable book about cacti "Cacti. The Unique encyclopedia" - the photo-encyclopedia - continuant. (photo 11.)
• Unusual in your collections (by Valery Kalishev)
  • Article include: How well do you know your collection? Most of you will certainly answer "very well" or "fairly well'. All the same try to look closer at it. Are there unusual forms, sometimes called freaks, among your plants? There may be plants with unusual appearance "Hands Up" - Cylindropuntia subulata, "Big-nosed Shorty" - Astrophytum myriostigma var. tulense or "Individualist" - Opuntia sp. There may be plants with extraordinary flowers... (photo 10.)