One for Tony or Stuart

[StevenT]

Hi Ernie

I have a bit of info to add to your statement - "Abbey brook ref. number 7645 Ex RE73 (Ron Evans?). The other has Abbeybrook number 7502 Herbertsdale form, Ex. Selectra nursery South Africa 6/1998."

AB acquired both the plants from which yours were propagated as part of the large collection of Ron W. Evans (1922 -2011) which they bought in 2009. Ron (not to be confused with Ron E. Evans who founded the Sedum Society) was the President of BCSS Nottingham Branch and I knew him very well indeed. He started collecting cacti & succulents in 1949 and kept going right through to 2009. But, having sold his plants to AB, he very quickly found he missed them very much and so he started vigorously acquiring plants again and had built up another fine collection when he passed away.

I helped Brian Fearn a little with the huge task of assimiliating Ron's collection into the AB collection - in particular, I inputted some names and data into their label-making computer system. The Abbey Brook (ABCN) numbers are their accession numbers. The "Ex RE 73 " with ABCN7645 is indeed Ron W Evans. Brian Fearn added the RE prefix to Ron's own accession number of 75. The info "Ex. Selectra nursery South Africa 6/1998." with ABCN 7502 is data from Ron. He was one of a group of UK growers who pooled together combined orders that were sent to Etwin Aslander of Selecta in South Africa from time to time. The "6/1998" shows that Ron received the plant in June 1998 from Selecta.

Seasons Greetings to all and good growing in 2024!

[Ernie]

Hi Steven. Excellent information. Thank you for taking time to post it. Best wishes for 2024.

[StevenT]

Hi Ernie

It's a pleasure. I'm always keen to share info.