Passiflora Cultivar Register

1. PSI AND THE REGISTER

PSI has been appointed by the ISHS or International Society for Horticultural Science as the ICRA or International Cultivar Registration Authority for the genus Passiflora. The Management Committee of PSI is then responsible for appointing a Registrar to take charge of its duties, consulting with such other experts as may be necessary. The current Registrar is Robert Rice; names of previous Registrars will be found in the table in section 6 below.

2. HOW TO APPLY TO REGISTER A NEW CULTIVAR

The first step is to get ready all your photographs and information BEFORE you go online. To help you do so, take a copy of the preparation form in English in English here or in French here in French here. You can also use French to fill in the form. We are working to introduce other languages, but in the meantime please do email the Registrar at passifloracultivars.org if you have difficulty understanding it or need help; alternatively submit a contact form.

Where the answer required is not obvious, a prompt will help you – shown in grey on the forms. Once you are ready, go to www.passifloracultivars.org | Register New Cultivar. The form contains 5 pages, corresponding to the five sections in the preparation forms. Once you’ve got to the final page and submitted the form, you’ll receive an email with it a copy of what you’ve filled in, and, in case you want to revise anything later, an edit button top left. The Registrar will receive a copy of the form at the same time, and may come back to you with questions – please do answer promptly – if you don’t, your application will be in limbo until you do.

To name your cultivar after an identifiable living person, you MUST get their permission – please do so before submitting your application. You must also make sure your proposed name is permitted: it must not be in Latin, and must not be confusable with one used before – to help check, search the registers. Occasionally, a name that is there may not be found, so double check by other means if you can. You can also use the search to check for other cultivars, species, originators and more.

The cultivar itself, under the International Code for the Nomenclature of Plants (“the Code”), must meet 3 key criteria: it must be distinct, uniform and stable. For Passiflora, the first of these is the most relevant, so you’ll be asked to explain why your cultivar is distinctive on the first page. Although your first x colvillii will be a gratifying achievement to you, there is no point in applying for registration unless it really stands out to others from all that have gone before.

And if it does stand out, and is worth registering, then please, please make sure you propagate it. A depressing proportion of cultivars registered since 2003 are already extinct. In one of the few material changes to the Code over the last 15 years, Article 2.3 Note 5 states that “it is highly desirable that a plant to be designated as a cultivar be propagated BEFORE (our capitals) being named [and only] exceptionally it may be published when only one individual exists”. So make sure you can answer the question on the form satisfactorily.

Finally, remember a picture is worth a thousand words – and several pictures, several thousand – at least if they are good. So make sure they are high resolution, correctly exposed, to the point and without other plants confusing the picture.

3. PAST REGISTERS: MAKING THEM EASIER TO USE

When preparing your submission, as already mentioned, you will find it helpful to consult past issues of the register. Unfortunately, over time registers have been published with varying titles in varying forms and locations. To make them easier and clearer to use, they have now been gathered together and placed online in a single master location, and the name of each issue has been modified to ensure it follows the same standard, reflecting the period covered and showing that it is indeed a register. Thus the document originally known as Passiflora Cultivars 2008-2010 has been renamed Register of Passiflora Cultivars 2008-2010. The file name is then formed by hyphenating the words, then adding an underscore “_” and the registration numbers covered, followed by the file extension “.pdf”, eg Register-of-Passiflora-Cultivars-2008-2010_119-171.pdf. Full details will be found in the table in section 6 below.

Where an issue of the register has appeared in more than one form, for example (1) as an article in Passiflora, and (2) as a pdf file generated in MS Word and placed online, the one deemed most authoritative has been chosen. The register chosen for 2014-2015 is in a slightly unusual form, reproducing more or less exactly the entries on the application form and including many N/As, so for those who prefer the form of the registers from 2004-2011.1, an alternative Condensed Register of Passiflora Cultivars 2014-2015 is available. From 2016-2017 onwards, I have adopted a compromise between these two, which I hope combines the best features of both.

The very first register is prefixed with the word “Initial” to flag the fact that it differs from all the other registers in (a) in being more of a checklist than a formal register and (b) uniquely needing to be referenced by page numbers since entries were only assigned numbers from the following issue onwards.

4. HOW TO CITE THE REGISTER

Although Passiflora has now adopted the Chicago Author-Date system as standard, the register calls for special treatment. Neither the author nor the date of publication are normally of interest; so unless they are, neither should be stated. Instead:

where the reference is to a particular cultivar, and the source includes its registration number, the normal form of in-text citation should be of the order:
- Register of Passiflora Cultivars #123

Also acceptable when the context dictates or allows are:

In all other cases the issue name should be used, followed by the page number where required, for example, if you wish to refer to a cultivar or other matter on page 3:
- Register of Passiflora Cultivars 2008-2010, 3
- Initial Register of Passiflora Cultivars 1819-2002, 3

Also acceptable when the context allows:

Register 2008-2010, 3
Initial Register 1819-2002, 3 or (in this case only) Initial Register, 3

The full name of the issue of the register, along with the filename and URL should be provided in the reference section at the end of the article. The publication date should not be given, unless it is particularly relevant, in which case it should be proceeded by the word “Published” to avoid confusion.

5. ABOUT REGISTERS FROM 2016-2017 ONWARDS

A word of explanation about the data is in order. Because some of the fields in the application form are optional, the type of data shown varies from cultivar to cultivar, and because some fields are free-format, the style of wording also varies. Where possible, the original wording supplied by the applicant (translated as needed) is used, supplemented by any responses to queries raised, except where abbreviation, avoidance of repetition, correction of botanic terms, names and assertions, stylistic consistency and general clarification were called for.

In accordance with the two international codes of nomenclature, please note that the parentage of plants is shown with the female parent first and the male second, which obviates the need for gender symbols.

The latest batch of new cultivars will be posted on the PSI revolving home screen shortly after the new register is published.

6. TABLE OF REGISTERS AND RELATED NOTES

Table here

7. THE REGISTERS: VIEW OR DOWNLOAD

Initial-Register-of-Passiflora-Cultivars

Notes-on-Register-of-Passiflora-Cultivars-2011-2013

Condensed-Passiflora-Register-2014-2015_188-228

Supplementary-Notes-on-Passiflora-Cultivars-2003-2011

Supplementary-Notes-on-Passiflora-Cultivars-2013-2015

Links here