Published taxonomy
A named treatment supports botanical placement. Check which name and taxon it actually covers.
Research notebook · public sources checked 8 September 2026Source review · 8 September 2026
← Cactus CodexOne plant. Several kinds of name.
Botanical identitySpeciesWhere material came fromSource / seed lotAn individual selectionCloneHow yours arrivedCutting chain
These are separate fields, not interchangeable labels. A botanical synonym links taxonomic names. A breeder’s cross records parentage. An accession identifies material within a particular collection. None automatically proves the rest.
Read the notation
- Species name
- A taxonomic identification, attributed to a treatment. Keep the received name alongside later determinations.
- Seed parent × pollen parent
- A recorded cross. Each seedling can be different. Preserve the breeder’s notation and whether pollination was controlled.
- OP / open pollinated
- The seed parent may be known; the pollen parent is not established by this label.
- Field / collection number
- A reference whose meaning depends on its collector and original record. It may cover a collection or seed source, not one clone.
- Garden accession
- A garden’s tracking identifier. The accession can contain one plant or several related individuals; inspect the record.
- Clone / cutting
- A vegetative descendant of a particular plant. Its identity relies on a documented chain rather than resemblance alone.
Case 01 · Dark Star and BK08612.4
Primary grower record GeeBee’s public gallery links GB06 with Dark Star, but also lists GB09 Delihlah and GB17 Aoxo under BK08612.4. The shared reference therefore cannot authenticate an arbitrary BK08612.4 plant as Dark Star.
The useful distinction is named plant identity versus shared source reference. Keep the full label and cutting chain. See the GeeBee name reference →
Case 02 · JS31 is not just one plant
Primary grower record The owner’s JS notes say JS31 began with eight seed-grown bridgesii plants; selected individuals later received suffixes including JS31.162 and JS31.171. The same page explicitly flags uncertainty about multiple clones under JS41.
A short accession code can lose important information. Copy the suffix and the source’s uncertainty instead of silently combining the records.
Case 03 · A selected hybrid is not its offspring
Institutional collection The Huntington’s Schick records distinguish a cross number from the selected individual within that cross, and distinguish both from introduction and garden accession numbers. A seedling of a named cultivar should retain its own identity.
Case 04 · Pedro Park: keep the whole cross
Primary catalogue record Rocky Mountain Fresh lists Pedro Park seed as PPK337, Pachanoi ‘Vilcabamba C’ × ‘Terscheckii Huasca Red’. Here PPK337 accompanies a seed cross, not one uniquely named cutting.
Record the catalogue, year and complete parent string together. Give each resulting seedling its own accession. Do not shorten the label to “Vilcabamba C,” which would lose both the other parent and the fact that it is an offspring.
Case 05 · Vilcabamba: the letters matter
Attributed grower statement In his public relabelling post, Andreas Michael identifies Vilca #1 / PPK33 as Vilca B and Vilca #2 / PPK34 as Vilca C. He separately reports that Vilcabamba A came from Chavin Herbalists. The archived post supports this naming account; it does not authenticate an unrelated cutting with a shortened label.
There is a numbering collision. RMF’s seed catalogue uses PPK034 for ‘Ribshifter’ × ‘Cactus Culture’, whereas the grower’s relabelling uses PPK34 for Vilca C. Record whether the number identifies a mother plant or a seed cross. Dropping the series context can identify an entirely different plant.
Andreas Michael · Vilcabamba relabelling statement (archived post checked) ↗ · Rocky Mountain Fresh · PPK034 seed cross ↗
Open file · Hutchison 6604
Conflicting evidence · origin unresolved Sacred Succulents describes its Hutchison 6604 offering as an old Ecuador accession. The research archive raises a different possibility: other Hutchison collections numbered 6592 and 6638 are recorded from Piura, Peru, on 14 and 17 September 1964.
Those are records of the surrounding expedition numbers, not specimens of 6604 itself. They make Peru a useful hypothesis to investigate, assuming the number belongs to that field sequence. A field notebook or original accession record explicitly naming 6604 would be stronger evidence. Keep the seller’s attribution and this uncertainty together; do not replace the label with a supposedly proven collection site.
Sacred Succulents · Hutchison 6604 auction description ↗ · Smithsonian record via GBIF · Hutchison 6592 ↗ · Smithsonian record via GBIF · Hutchison 6638 ↗
Open file · What does “Colossus” connect to?
Institutional record · cutting chain unresolved Berkeley’s public record for accession 66.0159 is filed as Cereus colossus, lists Bolivia and Ritter, and marks the accession dead with no vouchers. This establishes what that garden record says.
It does not, by itself, connect a present-day plant sold as Trichocereus “Colossus” to that accession. Nor does the “no vouchers” field prove that no specimen of the botanical taxon exists anywhere. Garden records, historical names and the living cutting chain must be checked separately.
A label worth passing on
Example record · fictional accession
- My accession
- RD-2026-014
- Received as
- GB06 “Dark Star”
- Material
- Cutting
- Source evidence
- Supplier receipt and dated parent-plant record
- Botanical name
- Peruvianus-type; received determination retained
- What remains unknown
- Earlier transfers not documented
This example shows useful record fields; it is not an authenticated plant offered by Revolutionary Designs. Never fill a gap in the chain with a plausible story.
How much confidence does a record deserve?
Primary provenance
The breeder, collector or holder supplies a record. Attribute it; a statement is not a DNA test.
Reported / disputed
Keep the attribution and competing evidence visible. Repetition is not independent corroboration.
Unknown
The missing link remains missing. A search with no result proves only what that search found.
A photograph may help compare morphology. It cannot prove an undocumented clone identity. Genetic matching would need authenticated reference material and a method able to distinguish the candidates.
Names still under review
PC/pachanot origins, historical collector-code chains and several community alias proposals need more than a repeated catalogue description. These are retained in the research queue, not promoted into complete pedigrees. This public reference is a checked selection, not a claim that the entire research registry has been authenticated.
Continue to Research & evidence or Trichocereus / Echinopsis.