OROC Quick Links

Why OROC? 100% free, hassle free, no delay, cultivar registration PLUS free promotion of your new plant to 1.4 million gardeners with full support of experts and the latest technology. 

View new registrations:
goto http://www.cultivar.org and search any genus. Just look for the OROC logo.

Register your new plant: OROC Projects  or just email ornamentals@lycos.com with your links and data.

Add data to your website (100% free): How to Extract Data From Cultivar.org : OROC Data Portal Tools

Learn more about OROC: Declaration : Principles and Remedies : Processes

Learn Cultivated Code for Cultivar Registration: How to name a cultivar (ISHS)
: Full ICNCP document

True Cultivar Count™: TCC Program

How to volunteer: Join us!

Questions and Comments: ornamentals@lycos.com and please include OROC on the subject line
OROC Topic Index
Advanced user tools and ideas
Color description tools
Commercial links policy
Cultivar Group registration
Cultivar Name Thesaurus
Data Portal creation
Data Format
Data Portal Tools
Data Sharing
Declaration
Description tools
Excluded genera
Expert assistance program
Extract Data From Cultivar.org
Fees
Format
Genera exclusions
Historical Cultivar Registrations (HCR)
HTML editing tips
ICNCP document
Logos: Use policy: Gallery
Lost and missing cultivars
Name reservation policy
NOD II Syntax
No delay policy
No fee policy
Nursery source links: encouraged : format
Old cultivar names
Ornamental value restriction
Patent monitoring
Perennial Registration (PerReg)
Plant Breeders Rights (PBR) monitoring
Principles and Remedies
Printed Registers
Projects
Registers
Registration Numbers
Resemblant cultivar policy
Student involvement 
TCC Program
Trademark policy
Trademark Rejection Guidelines for True Cultivars
Webmaster Data Sharing tools



OROC Declaration
While the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS)  Commission for Nomenclature and Cultivar Registration via the role of the International Cultivar Registration Authority (ICRA) over the last fifty years has succeeded in some valuable measure to stablize the vast nomenclature of garden plants, and in some genera serve the scientific and  gardening communities with brilliance and deep scholarship, in many ways they have failed to lead, proactively seek knowledge, communicate, and innovate for the majority of economically important and culturally precious landscape taxa. Fewer than 1% of new woody plants, 2% of hardy herbaceous perennials, and 0% of annual bedding plants (given that no registrars exist) are catalogued each year. Nor do the vast majority of nurserymen, including worldclass breeders in a genus for decades, know with whom in ICRA to communicate nor do most see any merit or value in their process.

When most of these incomplete registrations in hundreds of under-served genera appear, sometimes after years of delay since submission, one must purchase thousands of dollars worth of society, academic, and other periodicals to be fully informed, thus the scheme becoming an elitist communication paradigm that excludes all but the most wealthy institutions and financially able collectors; or those who just happen to live near libraries with few budget restrictions. A simple question to an ICRA may cost one upwards of $200 to acquire their data, leaving amateurs and students bewildered and unaided. We know. We were those students asked to pay up.

Furthermore the existing system is designed not to serve the public or even a devoted set of collectors but the perpetuation of chosen societies, institutions, favored nurseries, author-ICRA, nurserymen-ICRA, and gardens through sequestration of knowledge for sheer profit and control that goes far beyond the rules of the nomenclatural codes. In this internet era where publication costs literally nothing, the status quo with cultivar registration remains even more puzzling and intolerable. Garden plants and the people who cherish them are supremely worthy of a far more accesible and modern system, requiring both reform of the ICRA and revolutionary new alternate channels.

We as the OROC, a consortium of horticultural scholars, taxonomists, breeders, plantsmen and plantswomen, geneticists, professors, landscape designers,  curators, garden administrators, librarians, landscape architects, floriculturists, nurserymen, students, the odd botanist (aren't they all?), plant explorer, web guru, Master Gardeners, and accomplished amateurs strongly disagree with the money-first, elitist control of cultivar knowledge in what can be, and we believe should be a free, fair, and very open system. In this mind we will give more, do more, and share more towards the improvement of students, scholars, plantsmen, the general public, and all our gardens everywhere. If you have an internet connection, you will pay nothing to be informed.

You have our promise that free, effective, highly informed, proactive, and scientifically rich communication will be given, constantly improved, refined, and augmented at all times.


OROC Principles and Remedies

Principle 1.  100% New registration access. All new registration data is shared online 100% free with no preferences for any persons, parties, corporations, or organizations in terms of access, timing, or data delivery. No society dues, purchases of any product or service, journal subscription fees, or other paid fees or compensation will be required for access to this new cultivar data.
Principle 1.A. We affirm that the purpose of cultivar registration should never be financial support of a plant society, botanical garden, arboretum, organization, publisher, their staff, or other entity, nor is it acceptable to monetize and control data access for personal, professional,  and organizational reasons. Cultivar registration must favor open, status-neutral, communication of plant information regardless of ability or willingness to pay, join an organization, or subcribe to specific media.
Principle 1.B. Non-interference with tradtional monographs and databases. The primary goal of the OROC program is cataloging and communication new cultivar introductions, allowing authors, database developers, curators, germplasm managers, and other compiling parties to write more complete checklists and encyclopedia as their own work product, integrating OROC data as they choose. When it becomes logical, economically viable, and a strong scientific need, OROC will endeavor to create and share complete checklists as 100% free publications, mindful to avoid direct competition with authors, whenever possible or feasible, on whom we depend for free and willing exchange of data.

Principle 2. No fee policy. No fees or other compensation are charged for the registrations, processing or communication of data, or any changes to same. Lack of membership, legal standing, inclusion, nor any other fees or conditions will exclude a person from registering a cultivar.

Principle 3. Expert Assistance. Scientific support including experts in taxonomy, genetics, and the specific genus, all when possible, are provided readily, at no cost, and without delay. An unpaid, uncompensated, all volunteer panel of experts will be assembled when possible to assist in all these matters. 

Principle 4. Immediate Data Delivery. Registration data will be provided online in a timely manner within 24 hours as a goal, and sooner if possible. 

Principle 5. ICNCP. The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP) is our guide for cultivar name acceptance and evaluation when possible, our Board of Directors allowing exceptions to be clearly stated and explained.

Principle 6. Commercial Links.. Commercial links for promotion, mailorder sales, sales contacts, and other communications will be encouraged and communicated as an incentive for registration and general cooperation. This has been widely discussed as a failure to motivate registration with the current ICRA system.  Nurserymen and plant breeders need exposure, deserve it in fact, and providing them a printed address reference in some barely read journal is not what they need, want, or desire. Also important is the easy, mailorder or local availability of new cultivars to the buying public. There is nothing more frustating than seeing an exciting, breakthrough cultivar registration and finding no listing anywhere to acquire it.

Principle 7. No Delay Policy. Registrations are not delayed for any commercial reason such as publication of book or product by a participant except by legal demand by an attorney on record requiring such an order. The delay of publication of data for the purpose of book publication by an Author-ICRA, patron of some institution, or a noted horticultural society is considered abuse of the system and will not be tolerated.

Principle 8. Patent and PBR Monitoring. Application for a Plant Patent or Breeders Rights is considered a content capture event worthy of automatic registration and recognition. Staff in this project are to monitor all Patent and PBR sites on a regular basis.

Principle 9. Proactive Data Seeking. We will seek out new cultivars by any ethical and legal means possible and consider all publications of cultivars in catalogs, books, monographs, checklists, websites, or other media to be worthy of our automatic registration without or without the consent of the originator, nominant, introducer, patent holder, patent assignee, or other party. Our registrations will be both proactive and reactive, the first from our own study and the second from submissions sent to us.

Principle 10. Communication paradigm. Data will be distributed by the most innovative, technologically efficient, and effective means of communication possible. OROC will invest time, money, and resources to study, test, and acquire new technologies, tools, hardware and software, and all other means or methods for efficient transfer of our free data to the most users possible.

Principle 11. Volunteer and Student Mandate. Volunteers will be the basis of our data development and communication program. When possible we will have at least 20% of our staff as student interns to keep use fresh, modern, and technologically informed.
Principle 11.A. CCR Program. Commissioned Cultivar Registrars (CCR) will be trained and appointed from the ranks of known experts and eager students to provide modern, high level service at no cost and yet service of great value to our Registrants.

Principle 12. In the early stages, Http://www.cultivar.org is the default free website for registration data but is given no preference over other websites or media in any aspect or function. In future we will list all other sites with a full availability of OROC data and regular updates of such. The process for use and extraction of registrations from the cultivar.org pages will discussed below.

Principle 13. Elimination of Registration Obstacles. We will not impose severe and undesirable requirements upon registrants such as demand for surrounding copyrights to images, submission of nursery stock, herbarium vouchers, or plant tissues for documentation or evaluation, and need for extensive, multi-year cultivar trials. Such is the perogative of patent and breeder's rights organizations and by no means under any code the right of a cultivar registrar.
Principle 13.A. OROC will promote and assist with maximum documentation of a new cultivar but are mindful that our duty is registration and at no time are we to comment on the merits of a new cultivar except in a clearly editorial context with a named author. It is the work of plant trials committees, Plant Plant, and Plant Breeders Rights authorities to evaluate the unique merits of a new plant.

Principle 14. A Board of Directors will supervise all activities and have power with a simplle majority to rule on any issue.

Principle 15. Excluded genera policy. Our Board of Directors will determine a list of genera well served via ICRA with high scholarship, communication, data access, and other criteria which will be excluded from the OROC process. Exclusions will be posted on our registration forms and related portals.
The OROC program will not accept registrations in certain genera due to their size, complexity, specialized interest, and existing success in the ICRA and other programs. Subject to amendment by the Board of Directors our current list of excluded genera are: all Bromeliaceae,  Camellia, Dahlia, Dianthus, Fuchsia, Gladiolus, Hemerocallis, Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (and tender hybrids), Hosta, Iris, Lilium, all orchids, Paeonia, Rhododendron, Rosa, Saintpaulia and all other Gesneriaceae, Syringa, and Tulipa.

Principle 16. We will endeavor with care and to cooperate with ICRA, plant society, and other expert organizations in genera to exchange data whenever of mutual interest.

Principle 17. Proven effective registration tools such as those used at Coleussociety.com and ICRA will serve as models for other genera and plant groups in our scope.

Principle 18. Data will be made available in multiple formats and for multiple computer and media platforms so far as cost permits. 

Principle 19. CCR  Resources. Refusal of later homonyms and synonyms in registration will be based on all available literature from any reputable source. Staff have free access to Cultivars of Woody Plants, Hatch's Perennials, HITS, and other cultivar.org references at no cost to determine previous or confusing use of names that the ICNCP forbids. We further recommend use of the RHS Horticultural Database (not the new, Plant Finder), Internationalplantsnames, com, and plantscope.nl in this process.

Principle 20. Sensible Cultivar Name Policy. We will seek the registration of sensible, easily read, and communicated cultivar names in natural, vernacular language at all times, discouraging the use of trademarked names as the sole, preferred, logical, or de facto name of the garden taxon.
Principle 20.A. We believe the flight of commercial parties in using unregistered trademark names as the sole name for a single cultivar stems in part from the ICRA system and widespread refusals, abuses, and criticisms of plant breeders.
Principle 20.B. Rejection of some trademark names for OROC registration purposes. While OROC cannot determine the merits, validity, or legal status of your trademark, we have chosen to reject some trademark applications as non-taxonomic entities or those not relating directly to individual cultivars and their groups. These are:
  • 20.B.1.  Cultivar to Trademark and Trademark to Cultivar Conversions. We will not refuse the registation of any cultivar if the originator approved use of a registered or unregistered trademark name of the identifical name and spelling prior to it being considered of cultivar rank.  No name can thus be both a trademark and cultivar name at once. Once a trademark, always a trademark - and once a cultivar (such as in a Plant Patent) - always a cultivar.  We will of course understand errors in trade or other publications by persons not having permission of the originator or assignee to control name use.  We will consider the originator's first published intent for the taxon, whether an originator-sanctioned catalog, article, or press release, or the first legal patent or PBR publication as the means of establishing cultivar vs. trademark intent and permanent status. 
  • 20.B.2. Multigenera Marketing Trademarks vs. Taxonomicaly Direct Cultivar or Cultivar Group SynonymsWe will register trademarked names only if they are direct homologues (de facto trade synonyms) of (equivalents to) either one cultivar name or one cultivar group in a single genus, on a purely one-to-one basis with the cultivar or cultivar group rank.Trademarked names for general collections of taxa which span more than one genus will not be accepted here and considered non-taxonomic marketing names. These non-nomenclatural marketing or grouping names  may be noted by the CCR as a means of identifying the plant in gardens and on nursery labels. 
  • 20.B.3. Disallowed unregistered trademark terms and names. We will refuse any cultivar registration where the trademark name claims trademark status over a name, legal property, or term that cannot be trademarked, registered or not, due to existing, scientific,legal,  popular, and common use. For example, SHININNG™ COLEUS is acceptable but not SHINNING COLEUS™ because the Latin genus name is a scientific name and not subject to trademark law or control in most countries. 
  • 20.B.4.  Trademarks without legal or historical standing. We will refuse any cultivar registration with a trademark for which the creator of it wishes to append to an existing cultivar name for which they have no legal standing, historical connection at the time of origination, originator or nominant status, exclusive rights assignment, PBR or Patent control, or other grounds for claiming that cultivar as their own to name or market. For example, a party has decided to append an unregistered trademark to the old Cotoneaster horizontalis 'Variegatus' with no connection to it in history, law, science, or any known realm or jurisdiction. It will be chaos if tens of thousands of existing, often old, cultivars come in play as trademark marketing opportunities. We will refuse these trademarks as usurpations of scientific nomenclature and naming rights unless granted by a national or federal trademark agency. If a party has a unique or distinct clone of an existing cultivar and wishes to name it, this should be done in terms of a new, vernacular, non-Latin cultivar name according to the rules and with a matching trademark name if they wish. 
  • 20.B.5.  Unregistered to Registered Trademark Conversions. OROC will not reject a cultivar registration if the trademark has been legally registered with a national or federal agency if it previously appeared as an unregistered trademark. Many such agencies and law firms of note recommend preliminary or temporary use of unregistered trademark marks until the registration process is complete. 

Principle 21. The staff will endeavor and be proactive at all times to communicate with originators and introducers of cultivars to gain further clarity of descriptions, histories, origins, nomenclature, and to seek rights of high quality images. We will seek out answers rather than waiting for them to be asked by other parties. We willl cultivate relationships with plant originators, showing no favoritism, but seeking to serve them as friends, colleagues, and horticultural partners.
Principle 21.A. Our model will be to serve Registrants with eagerness, willingness, and full awareness of their goals for the use and commercial promotion of a new cultivar, serving as much as we can, charging them nothing, and thus encouraging future registrations under our policy of honesty and helpfulness at all times. Flawless customer service and communication without delay will be our goal at all times.

Principle 22. Printed and Bound Registers. Fees may be charged to persons or libraries wishing to have printed, traditionally published, or bound copies of registrations but only as a means to recover costs and this with an absolute minimum of expense to the buyer and as nearly as possible to no profit nor loss to the project. We will work to minimize these demands and costs via our online website and ebooks that satisfy the needs of the academic, scientific, and all other traditional library communities.
Principle 22.A. Free ebooks with registrations will be studied with the desire to offer these via iTunes, Google Play Books, Amazon Kindle, and similar services that support a worldwide audience.

Principle 23. The Board of Directors may delete or modify any of these principles with an 80% or higher majority vote and add new principes with the same voting standard.

Principle 24. Objective, non-evaluation mission. OROC will have no function in determining the usefulness, commercial merits, overly resemblant taxonomy, or otherwise comment on the scientific merits of a new cultivar as has been a declared abuse of ICRA in refusing registrations well outside their defined role. The declaration of these merits is the role of Plant Patent, PBR, and cultivar trial administrators and not the role of any Registrar.
Principle 24.A. Respect for the necessity of commercial resemblant cultivars. OROC understands the commercial needs, rights, and needs of nurseries and marketing firms in this highly competitive age with so many nurseries and garden failing and falling, that highly resemblant cultivars are logical and frankly required. Everyone needs their own dwarf purple Loropetalum, a compact gold-leaved Physocarpus, the super narrow, wintergreen  and denser than coral Thuja cultivar, and that glowing (but not too harsh) pink Phlox paniculata with massive heads that do not flop above mildew-free foliage. OROC will refuse no resemblant registrations based on the natural convergence of commercial requirements in our big world, knowing that the competition of likes and near equals lead to better plants over time. We will seek to distinguish them when possible by noting comparisons and contrasts in detail.
Principle 24.B. Reference to existing, objective cultivar evaluations and trial reports. While it is not the function or OROC or any other cultivar registration program to determine the garden merits, distinctiveness, or commercial potential for a given cultivar, we do reserve the link to respected university, plant society, and third part evaluation and trial programs and include this data in a cultivar data sharing section. Persons are welcome to submit links to proven trial organizations to provide a diversity of viewpoints on a particular cultivar from trial grounds around the world.

Principle 25. Conditional ornamental qualifiications. We will accept registration in certain genera which contain high ornamental, landscape-worthy plants but refuse registration of cultivars purely for pomological, agronomic, olericultural, or non-aesthetic production of fruit, flowers, leaves, and other plants parts. Grounds for considering a taxon ornamental or semi-ornamental, even an edible-landscape plant, include but are not limited to: high colored or variegated foliage, highly colored and abundant fruit, unique plant habit, highly showy leaf colors such as gold, blue, or red foliage, showy bark or twigs, highly colored and abundant flowers, doubleness or incision of flower, incised or unusual lobing of the leaf blade, and fragrance of the flowers.
Principle 25. A. Subject to a 80% majority vote of the Board of Directors, OROC will only accept ornamental taxa in the following genera if proven or know to be ornamental and the originator must provide sufficient data to prove a highly aesthetic status: Brassica, Carya, Fragaria, Juglans, Lactuca, Malus, Musa, Pisium, Prunus, Pyrus,  Punica, Rubus, Saccharum, and Zea.

Principle 26. Ban on Name Holding or Reservation. No system of cultivar name reservation or "holding" will be allowed or implemented. This ICRA abuse with hefty fees for name reservation and later for actual registeration and later registration data changes will not be permitted at any time or place.
Principle 26.A. Fake cultivar rejection. Registrations based on previous "reserved" names fraudulently published for plants which do not yet exist, using doubtful images and descriptions will not be accepted. Some originators freely admit this practice and one had stated "the next good seedling I find will be called Y...and am laying claim to the name now". Registering a breeding or selection goal not extant or real will be rejected.

Principle 27. Preference for registration will not be dependent on any marketing opportunities, advertising participation, or other means of compensating the OROC project. All registrants will be treated equally regardless of participation, past or present.
Principle 27.A. All new cultivar registrations will be completely open on at least one website (currently the default www.cultivar.org) without requirement for membership, registration of use, signing up, transfer of personal information, ad presentations, or any other act even if free and without obligation. These listings are part of the OROC Data Sharing Program.
Principle 27.B. Complete, historical (past to present or past only) cultivar checklists and horticultural monographs if 100% free may require access by means of registration or sign for a newletter, password, or similar program as a means of documentating use and assuring data integrity and security of these specialized, very large documents which fall outside the OROC Data Sharing Program. In most cases these documents contain images, text, and other contents which must preserve copyright compliance and previous legal agreements and are appropriate for sharing but maintaining the rights of authors, image copyright holders, and other considerations which do not permit free exchange without considerations or conditions.
Principle 27.C. Respect for Existing Cultivar Publications. Due to existing author agreements, previous sales promises to customers, copyright notices, and publication contracts, some content at cultivar.org and other allied sites, namedly CULTIVAR.ORG DIRECT ACCESS will be exempt from OROC Data Sharing. We will endeavor to convert some CULTIVAR.ORG DIRECT ACCESS material to 100% OROC free content as legal and contractual obligations pass. It is not the purpose or goal of OROC to render horticultural authorship in terms of cultivar checklists, horticultural monographs, and other cultivar databases obsolete by demanding no-cost access at all times. Indeed the profit motive is essential to get great, large works completed and allow the authors to retire with modest royalties as they deserve and require.
Principle 27.D. OROC will encourage free sharing of large monographs and checklists, mindful of the necessity of authors to fund their careers,  expensive research programs, highly beneficial breeding and conservation projects, preservation of their valuable gardens and worldclass collections in an era of high taxation, but trying to maximize the amount of free material at all times within these practical boundaries. OROC will seek the donation of manuscripts from living authors as well as gifts from the author's estate via secured, long-term gift management.

Principle 28. Mandate for New Technologies. We will use new technologies, communication media, and all other techniques of scientific, commercial, and informational merit to communicate our data. Currently we use the resources of 123contactform which provide real analytics, graphs, Google Maps to cultivar origins and display gardens, social media feeds, video embeds, numerous free marketing tools for registrants, JPG image uploads, and many other modern tools.;

Principe 29. Response Time Requirement.. Registrants and all parties will receive a response within 24 hours during business (weekdays) when possible and no later than 48 under any circumstance with a reply well-researched with due diligence, providing a complete answer when possible and a preliminary report when necessary. Followups must be swift and regular for complex projects at all times. We will never tolerate lack of responses and long delays as typical of ICRA and plant society communications under any terms as these are our valuable partners, friends, and worthy creators of our future gardens who demand respect and the highest level of honor at all times.

Principle 30. In the spirit of international scientific cooperation the OROC will at all times offer registration data to ICRA and other parties of similar standing and authority (such as well-known authors, breeders, scholars) in a given genus for their own use, consideration, providing no copyright restrictions on their use or sharing of this data. This effort will be proactive and not reactive, waiting only for requests.

Principle 31. Cultivar Group Registrations. Cultivar Groups may be registered as if an individual cultivar for the purposes of documenting this useful taxonomic grouping and establishing the originator or nominant in question. The group may be based on a trademarked entity such as FANCY® PINK, FANCY® WHITE, FANCY® RED, FANCY® PINK WITH WHITE EYE, FANCY® DARK RED, and FANCY® HOT PINK.
Principle 31. A. Cultivar Subgroup Registration. When a group of cultivars exceeds at least 8 taxa in terms of the combination of two major traits or two accepted Cultivar Groups or a clean genetic merger thereof, the Subgroup may be registered.
Principle 31. B. Cultivar Groups, SERIES, and trademarks. The group registration will be termed a SERIES if based on a trademarked entity such as FANCY® PINK, FANCY® WHITE, FANCY® RED, FANCY® PINK WITH WHITE EYE, FANCY® DARK RED, and FANCY® HOT PINK. This would known as the FANCY® Series but had their been 'Fancy White', 'Fancy Pink' it would be called the (Fancy Group) in the context of cultivar nomenclature

Principle 32. Annual Surveys for Improvement. OROC will conduct annual surveys of major plant originators, their organizations, and students to determine new ways to serve them better, communicate more information freely, efficienty, and in the most useful formats. The OROC Board of Directors is tasked for an annual action plan for implementation of the best survey ideas.

Principle 33. OROC Archives and INCA. We will archive all online and scanned documents in digital form to form an OROC Archive that will be distributed to all Board of Director members, Certified Cultivar Registrars (CCR), and selected universities for long-term storage and safe-keeping. Cultivar.org's INCA (Internet Nursery Catalog Archive) already has more than  40 gigabytes of cultivar description data since 2000 and will also be used in this archiving project. Due to copyright restrictions on nursery catalogs, academic journals, many websites, and formal books, the archive cannot be made available to the public. Our internal distribution is solely for purposes of maintaining the information over future years without loss of information as the internet or author's remove their contents.

Principle 34. OROC Non-profit Status. The OROC Board of Directors will consider and personally fund conversion of this group to an indendent non-profit corporation at such time it deems appropriate and helpful to the mission. No fees, taxes, or other considerations will be charged for administration of the OROC program.

Principle 35, Respect for Patent and PBR Processes. We will respect the needs and requests of any originator to follow Plant Patent and Plant Breeders Rights rules and not interfere in those processes by premature communication or distribution of plant data.
Principle 35.A. We do reserve the right to publish knowledge of a cultivar if it appears in existing publications or is clearly on display in admissible areas of a public garden
, and do so on the ground that Horticultural Media have access to this same plant imagery and data.

Principle 36. Selection and Role of CCR. Whenever possible, Commisioned Cultivar Registrars (CCR) will be selected for broad knowledge of many plant types and genera so they assist each other in backup roles for others when unavailable and to educate themselves on a richer diversity of plants. We wish to avoid dependence on any one or two people for individual genera processing and thus have wider, deeper expertise from collaboration.
Principle 36.A. CCR and the Board will have a ready pool of specialists available to assist the CCR in specific genera situations and complex or difficult decisions.

Principle 37. Multiple submission tools and forms. We want the data whether by little or much effort, simple to complex, and so OROC will accomodate all originators with whatever level of time, devotion, detail focus, or control they wish when telling OROC about their new creation.  When possible we will accept cultivar registrations with these styles of tools: 1) Just Tell Us. A simple email providing whatever data and links they can, 2) a simple short form that can but cut and pasted into email for even more information, and 3) a much more extensive, digital tool allowing capture of submitted images, Google maps, complex morphological radio and check boxes, more details history, social media feeds, multiple links and email approaches, and all available, powerful and yet useful techologies.
Principle 37.A. Mandate for registration tool innovation. Our volunteers including CCR and Board of Directors will at all time run experiments with new data submission and communication tools to not only offer better tools but new alteratives to familiar, existing, and more traditional ones. OROC staff will at all times educate themselves on new, affordable, rational communication tools, especially those free or at low cost to OROC, and always free to our consumers, learning from every new tool or platform, modifying them with skill, and always learning to be more, preserve more, and share more for the least possible effort and expense.



 OROC Registration Steps and Projects

* If you are the originator or rights owner of the cultivar please select any form you desire. If not, please use the Just Tell Us email method.
* If your cultivar will be or was introduced to the trade after 2010 you may register it right away. If it is older than 2010, we are not accepting names at this time except for Historical Cultivar Registrations. The actual origination date is not considered as we know many woody plant evaluations take 10-30 years before a specific accession is considered worthy of formal naming and introduction.


STEP ONE - CULTIVAR NAME IDEAS: Do you still need a fun, clever, descriptive, memorable, and very marketable name for your new plant creation? Maybe you already have a name in mind but it could be better or more distinct? Most of us struggle with naming our creatures and have second thoughts. The Cultivar Name Thesaurus is a nice tool to help.

STEP TWO - BASIC NAMING RULES:
Cultivar names according to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP).
  1. Must be approved of by the originator 
  2. Cannot be in Latin - if you use an unregistered trademark (TM) Latin is allowed ('Viridis Laciniatus' is not allowed but VIRIDIS LACINIATUS™ is)
  3. Cannot combined Latin or Greek with another language such as 'Joe's Pendula', 'Nana Jones', or 'Grandiflora Smith Form'
  4. Should be a unique word or phrase not used before in the genus
  5. Must not be confused with an existing cultivar or series (ie. Mosaik is easily confused with Mosaic)
  6. Must not exaggerate the value or merits of the plant, especially in the future (ie. no 'Greatest of All' nor 'Biggest Red')
  7. Should be short, expressive, and clear
  8. Must never be the same as genus name, either Latin or common (no 'Mint' nor 'Betula')
  9. Must contain more than just numbers of a single letter
  10. Must not contain punctuation including commas, periods, hyphens, extra spaces, or special characters
  11. Should not be too general so the word or phrase is readily use elsewhere (no  'Red Leaf' nor 'Gold Center')
  12. Must not contain any of these banned words: variety, cultivar, selection, hybrid, group, mixture, selection, sport, grex, improve, or broom
  13. Should never be offense for their content, including in other languages - I think of the plant breeder who named everything for famous porn stars and their movies
  14. Must have the permission of any living person , especially if a well-known person, politician, or celebrity. 
  15. Must not falsely state an association with an existing cultivar if no connected or with that originator's permission (no 'Giant Wasabi' or 'Bone Fish Baby')
  16. Should never used the trademarked or service mark of a leading company, product, or service (no "Mickey Mouse', 'Coca-Cola', nor 'Velveeta')
To learn even more about the ICNCP read this free copy from the web: http://www.actahort.org/chronica/pdf/sh_10.pdf

STEP THREE - CULTIVAR DESCRIPTION TOOLS: If you need help describing a cultivar in rich detail (we are not fussy about taxonomic or nursery terms but they might make your plant stand out better and sell more)
  • We recommend Dr. Radford's Vascular Plant Systematics (VPS) for easy to understand illustrations on how to describe plants, their leaves, roots, fruit, stems, and flowers. This VPS sites makes is very simple to understand leaf shapes with clear diagrams
  • Radford's VPS has one of the most logical means of describing the shapes of  entire plants, leaves, flowern petals, and other parts. It uses ratios of length to width and other traits to give a good name to the object in question: VPS Shapes with the VPS Shape Chart. How do we know a leaf or petal or entire tree is ovate, elliptic, linear, orbicular, rhomboid, etc. This ends those guesses and arguments for good.
  • Email us at ornamentals@lycos.com and we'll have a trained botanist, ornamental horticulturist, or taxonomist work with you are no cost. Many new plant introductions fail because they sound so much alike other plants. A trained taxonomist can help your plant look as unique, distinct, and special as it truly is. 
  • Use the Compare-Contrast System required by the United States, Canadian, Australian, and some other patent or breeder's right agencies. This get's your plant really noticed with hard, solid, take-it-the-bank, and clear data. For example:
    • My new 'Sky Glow' has 43-56 flowers per head (inflorescence) vs. 24-45 on it's parent 'Golden Queen'
    • 'Jade Magic' combines the 45cm tall habit of 'Nana' with the very dark green leaves of 'Viridis', a unique combination
    • 'Red Whirl' leaves remain Pantone 199, 200, 201 until fall while 'Rubra' has those same values only in the newest 2-5 leaves, becoming mostly Pantone 378 or 385 with hints of Pantone 200, 201 only on the midrib and margins, becoming a much greener blade close to the species by late summer. 
    • 'Curly's Gold' has a marginal gold chimera much as the traditional 'Aureomarginata' but differing in a margin about 30% of the surface (vs. 10-20% for 'Aureomarginata') and lacking the maculated, spotted, subtle transition of 'Golden Glory' (chimera about 5-15% surface). It is the most wide, bold marginated cultivar to date (June 15, 2028). Growth rate per year is about 30cm vs. 12-28cm for the older 'Aureomarginata', making it a more vigorous, strong plant by 2-5 years.
    • SNOW PILE™ has thick leaf genes for added heat, mite, and mildew resistance with same pale white to cream flowers as 'Alba' and 'Silver King'. It has a calyx darker than 'Alba' (Pantone 359) and similar to 'Silver King' (Pantone 377 and 376).
  • For colors we recommend the RHS Colour Chart and for even more colors the Pantone PMS system. We do not recommend use of the smaller RHS Mini Chart for it's few colors and specialized application to the floricultural trade. Pantone gives up to 2300 different colors and ones the RHS does not have. The catch is that both the RHS and Pantone usually ask $90-170 for their printed, precise charts. If your computer's monitor has been color calibrated (and never try this with a cellphone olr tablet) the site http://www.pantone-colours.com/ is another fine color chart. You do NOT have to use either RHS or Pantone to submit a plant. We'll gladly accept "light yellow maturing to medium golden-yellow to light chartreuse". 
STEP FOUR: Please select the type of plant you wish to register and follow instructions on the links below.

Excluded genera: we do not accept registrations in the following species, genera, and families. All others are welcome:
all Bromeliaceae,  Camellia, Dahlia, Dianthus, Fuchsia, Gladiolus, Hemerocallis, Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (and tender hybrids), Hosta, Iris, Lilium, Narcissus, all orchids, Paeonia, Rhododendron, Rosa, Saintpaulia and all other Gesneriaceae, Syringa, and Tulipa. 

Annuals/Bedding Plants: Use PerReg unless Coleus
Bulbs:
Use PerReg
Conifers: Use OROC-Woody Plant Registrations
House Plants:
Use PerReg
Interior Landscape Plants: Use PerReg
Perennials: Use PerReg
Shrubs: Use OROC-Woody Plant Registrations
Trees: Use OROC-Woody Plant Registrations
Tropical Plants: Use PerReg
Vines: Use OROC-Woody Plant Registrations



We have two programs:
1. Just Tell Us. Email everything you have to ornamentals@lycos.com. Include any useful links to buy it, view things about it, and as complete a description of your plant's unique merits as possible. 
2. OROC Woody Plant Registrations Short Form. Please cut and paste the text inside this table to an email, fill it out, and send to
ornamentals@lycos.com:

Species and genus name:
Cultivar name:
Patents or Breeder's Rights?
Trademarked (registered, unregistered)?
Originator's name (and affiliation):
Registrant's name (who is submitting this):
Is another nursery introducing it for you?:
When was it discovered and when is it for sale?
How did it occur (seedling, sport, controlled cross, wild):
If found in the wild, name the general region, country, provence, etc:
Describe it in detail:
Height:  cm tall x   cm  wide in  years
Flower color: corolla:    calyx:
Flower or inflorescence dimensions:
Leaf shape:
Leaf dimensions (specify inches, cm, mm, etc.):    x
Leaf color (above):
Leaf color (below):
Leaf color (fall):    to
Leaf base type:
Leaf apex type:
Any special pest or disease resistance:
Genetics/cytology such as tetraploid, triploid, etc:
Compare and contrast to one existing cultivar close to it:
Why is it unique and special?
Internet link to learn more about it:
Internet link to buy it (if different):
Internet video link to embed (Youtube, Vimeo, etc):
Internet link for cultivar.org to get a photo to post (PLEASE DO NOT ATTACH photos to the email, include your copyright statement unless you wish to donate it):
Any other information our readers might like:


 
 The International Coleus Society at coleussociety.com is our first project to test use of a non-ICRA, free, high tech cultivar registration form in a genus  with a high degree of complexity in terms of genetics and taxonomic description. Click this logo to learn about the ICS and access their reg form. This  process is backed by a strong historical record of 1460 Coleus cultivars from 1856 to present described in detail in the society Cultivar Files available  to members and also sold as a stand-alone PDF encyclopedia at Google Play Books. New Coleus registrations are free to the public but the entire cultivar file remains a copyrighted product of the society.


 
PerReg™ is our first registration project for hardy herbaceous perennials.. We are accepting registration as of April 20, 2015. Registrants can access this system by going to cultivar.org, then Promote Your New Plant, and then click on the PerReg logo to direct access to the 123contact form. They may also select to email a short form for creater ease.

We highly recommend you use the first link to our partners at 123 Contact Form because the public will learn more about your plant and get special tools to access your information this way. For example, you can embed a Google Map to your nursery or to a garden where you plant is on display.

We encourage all parties to use the above logo to link your readers to one of the following. Your site becomes a portal to share and contribute.
1) Just Tell Us. Email everything you have to ornamentals@lycos.com. Include any useful links to buy it, view things about it, and as complete a description of your plant's unique merits as possible.
2) directly to http://www.123contactform.com/form-1304958/PerReg
3) email the following short form that requires data entry to ornamentals@lycos.com
Species and genus name:
Cultivar name:
Patents or Breeder's Rights?
Trademarked (registered, unregistered)?
Originator's name (and affiliation):
When was it discovered and when is it for sale?
How did it occur (seedling, sport, controlled cross, wild):
Describe it in detail (height, width, flowers, foliage, fruit):
Compare and contrast to one existing cultivar close to it:
Why is it unique and special?
Internet link to learn more about it:
Internet link to buy it (if different):
Internet video link to embed (Youtube, Vimeo, etc):
Internet link for cultivar.org to get a photo to post (PLEASE DO NOT ATTACH photos to the email, include your copyright statement unless you wish to donate it):
Any other information our readers might like:





 OROC - PerReg - Process One (OROC-PerReg-P1)
  1.  Registrants access the data entry process and tools via the access portals stated above, This is our reactive process. 
    1. http://www.123contactform.com/form-1304958/PerReg
    2. The Short Form emailed to ornamentals@lycos.com
    3. JUST TELL US. Simple email to ornamentals@lycos.com. You pick what links, descriptions, and such you want to provide.
  2. New Ornamentals Society/Cultivar.org staff send raw data submissions to Commissioned Cultivar Registrars (CCR) to evaluate the cultivar for adherance to OR the CCR will be given a direct password to the 123contactform website.
    1. International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP) 
    2. Additional OROC nomenclatural standards to be published at a later time (see Principle 25 above as one example).
    3. Completeness of data. Lacking information the CCR will contact the Registrant for additional information.
    4. Lack of homonym status (previously used of name) using Hatch's Perennials and INCA (Internet Nursery Catalog Archive) and all other known, respected perennial resources with one exception:
      1. The proposed cultivar name is identical to one clearly thought or known to be extinct and not appearing in catalogs or literature as a viable garden purchase for at least 20 years.
      2. No cultivar registration will be rejected for use of the name in another species unless the cultivar is hybrid of any species in which the name has been used. (For example, 'Valentine' will be allowed in Plantus albus and Plantus communis (both) but not for a hybrid of either if the cultivar name is existing (extant) and viable in both species realms in commerce).The goal here is to minimize confusion.
  3. Rejections will be emailed to the Registrants for recommendations for correction as will be acceptances.
  4. The Head Registrar will have a right of refusal to disallow or allow any registration, citing reasons and a clear argument for same.
  5. Accepted Registrations will be posted on www.cultivar.org free to all parties for reuse so long as the registration is coded with OROC Registration Numbers. These consist of the first four letters of the genus (five to ten if needed to differentiate it from more common genera, ie. CASTANO from CAST for Castanea) followed by the chronological numbering of the accessing such as PHLO012, CAST002, ACER022, and JUNI091. These OROC Numbers will be highlight in golden-yellow background with black letters for quick recognition.
OROC - PerReg - Process Two (OROC-PerReg-P2)
  1. New Ornamentals Society staff, members, volunteers, Commissioned Cultivar Registrars, and friends of both parties will actively seek by all means and techologies new cultivar names in genera, regardless of originator cooperation or contact, serving as a proactive, data-seeking, and always curious process to gain complete knowledge of all new cultivars. 
  2. Editors of GENUS CENTRAL @ CULTIVAR.ORG will add the taxon thought and considered a viable, real, commercial entity using full OROC Numbers in the body of the website.
  3. The Process Two registrations will be considered of equal value and merit as the Process One (originator submitted) if sufficiently reviewed and sanctioned.
OROC - PerReg - Process Three (OROC-PerReg-P3)
  1. This is our integrative process whereby we improve data from Process Two with data submitted by originators at the later time using Process One. Typically we would expect to know about and register cultivars well in advance and in many cases the originator will contact us at a later time with more data, useful links, images, etc.

True Cultivar Count™

The TCC Program was started by Larry Hatch of the New Ornamentals Society (cultivar.org) as a mean of calling attention with a bright scoreboard to the estimated number of valid, legitimate, or other unique cultivar names in a given species or genus. It's purpose has been to call attention to the completeness of cultivar checklists and books in relation to each other as well as dramatize how little most of us know about the diversity in most genera. Furthermore, it assist collectors, curators, germplasm managers, trial committee staff, and others in building the most complete possible collections, tissue archives, or trial gardens. Know about more meaning looking for more and improve plant evaluation and cultivar conservation the world over. It was first implemented with the International Coleus Society (www.coleussociety.com) as a means of keeping track of the more than 1450 cultivars in that genus. The number changes often so please check it out.

Mr. Hatch has donated use of the TCC trademarked logos and program to OROC as a means of improving the value of the OROC free new cultivar registration data in the context of the larger universe of all known taxa, extant, extinct, or unknown in their status. The miniature scoreboards will appear on cultivar.org and other sites sharing the data.

If you disagree with the TCC Score (AND have a means of proving it) please challange us to do better and link to your work or if you wish merge our data for the public good.

How is the TCC Score computed? We use this general formula:
A) the number of apparently valid, legtimate, unique, or (not AND) documented cultivars, trademarked entities (if no cultivar name to be counted), or cultivar groups from our cultivar.org family of encyclopedias such as Hatch's Perennials, Cultivars of Woody Plants, NODgeo, HITS, Pinetum Novum, NODabp, ICS Coleus Cultivar Files, and other documents. 
PLUS
B) recent OROC registrations not found in above.
PLUS
C) cultivars not in A. and B. but known from other authors, databases, catalogs, etc.
MINUS
D) any cultivars or names that have come into question by scientific, legal, or other grounds as invalid, illegitimate, dubious, or otherwise not worthy of continued status as registered. Finding that two trademarked names represent PBR for the same cultivar in two different countries or system will cause them to be merged to one taxon.



Historical Cultivar Registrations (HCR)
We will gladly accepted cultivars older than 2010 by origin or introduction year if they meet any one of these criteria:
  • They missing from major, comprehensive cultivar encyclopedias and well known genus checklists, at least one, and generally missed by authors of same, and dating to anytime in the past. For example, most of the Coleus cultivars selected in the US by Dreer and Manda nurseries are omitted from both modern and European Coleus and comprehensive interior plant books. For a second example, any tree missing from Bean or Krussman or any conifer not listed by works from Welch or denOuden and Boom would qualify as HCR registration. 
    • Our staff can assist you in determining if the cultivar name appears in existing literature and whether the data are accurate, complete, and require amendment. 
  • They were listed or described by comprehensive cultivar encyclopedia but with a signficant amount of missing descriptive or origin information.  We want to fix and amend incomplete information and registration is one way to correct a flawed or incomplete record.
  • Taxonomic nomenclature fixes such as splitting and renaming polyclonal cultivars of merit. This may be useful in splitting off important imposter cultivars from the original true one. 
    • The taxonomic fix exceptions (this one and two below) applies to plants named, originated, or introduced at any time in history.
  • Taxonomic nomenclature fixes such as renaming typical species forms of gardens which are not typical and should now be cultivars and not species equivalents
  • Taxonomic nomenclature fixes where hybrid species should not be treated Cultivar Groups of garden origin and not true botanical style hybrids.
HCR cultivars do not have to be in the trade, extant, and may in fact be lost (extinct). We want to correct and improve the historical record for future researchers.

A major source of HCR material is from study of old nursery catalogs or obscure reference books which even the best of authors might have seen. With more than 500,000 printed nursery catalogs in collections and now more than 14,000 digital and free online (May 2015), the amount of missed, lost, forgotten, and often interesting cultivars is virtually limitless. In some cases, we have opportunities to go looking for them and in rare instances we can find them and bring them back! Due to no fault of their own, many American nursery catalog offerings were not known to the major Euro-centric authors and likewise all of us in the West have had very weak knowledge of Russian, Soviet Block, Chinese, and Vietnamese garden varieties. Slowly we will make up these gaps in cultivar history and HCR will be one way to hope to update our worldwide knowledge set.


OROC Registration Numbers (OROC-RN)

The Registration Number indicates and assists in several ways:
  1. It's existance before a scientific name of a cultivar indicates that registration has been officially accepted, hence not PENDING.
  2. It serves as a count of how many new cultivars the program has registered in the genus, 001 being first and perhaps 023 the latest one/
  3. The OROC-RN can become an international designation to show the cultivar name and it's identity are accepted by this organization, with a specifici set of literature, history, and descriptive details assigned to it. Should the trade gives us more than one clone of 'Green Shadow', one could refer to PLAN056 as your definition of 'Green Shadow' with it's fixed set of traits and documentation. If one of the imposter clones of 'Green Shadow' shows merit and were to be renamed 'Dark Shadows', it might be registered as PLAN101 and given a description which clearly delimits and distinguishes the two clones by compare and contrast terminology. 
  4. The number can in many cases be appended to the TRUE CULTIVAR COUNT™ to increase it's scoreboard value of the total number of believed, valid, and worthy cultivar names in a genus or species. 
OROC-RN format is:
  • First four letters of the generic name, in all uppercase, such as BUDD for Buddleia/Buddleja or JUNI for Juniperus.
  • Only recognized, published, botanically valid genera names recognized in botanical literature and databases will be used. No trade only genera or pseudo-genera for no botanical standing will be accepted. 
  • OROC-RN will only appear for genera we register. Our Excluded Genera List should be noted.
  • In the case of genera with identical first four letters, additional letters will be used until a unique abbreviation is found. The Head Registrar will select this designation. For example, CERC was first denoted for Cercis and after that Cercidiphyllyum was designated as CERCID. The designation CERCI was avoided as that could be confused with Cercis. 
  • Registrations wil be assigned a number in order of registration, implying no chronological order of origin or submission with numbers giving the format of 000 in a series from 001 to 999. That said registration 031 may have originated before 001 but only came to our attention at a later time. 
  • The number will be appended to the genus abbreviation such as CERC001, CERC002 or BUDD012 and BUDD102 with no space between them. 
  • The complete Registation Number will consist of the genus abbreviation plus the number in the series in this form:
  •                             GENU00x - [scientific name of cultivar] 
  • for example:    PLAN002 - Plantus albus 'Snow Dragon'
  •                          PLAN113 - Plantus x roseus 'Tea Party Rose'
  • Formats and syntax for the cultivar data which appears after the OROC-RN are found at Data Formats for Data Sharing



 OROC - How to Extract OROC Data From Cultivar.org

A typical listing under the hypothetical genus Plantus might look like on the cultivar.org website.


PLAN001 -
 Plantus 'Jade Fun' (P. viridis x P. gracilis) (Plantus Nursery, their own origination 2017)
PLAN002 -  Plantus albus 'Fallen Snow'  - 22.4cm tall x 120cm wide (3 years), compact, spreading mound with age very much as 'Snow Child'. Flower corolla white, calyx pale green with minor red spots, floriferous up to 50 per plant (vs. 32 for 'Albus'). Leaves darker green than 'Albus', more elliptic-lanceolate (narrower), 2.1 cm long x 1.3 cm wide (mean), very glaucous below. Highly resistant to powdery mildew. From Metropolis University Arboretum, open-pollinated 'Albus' x 'Snow Child', introduced 2022. Introduced Plantus Nursery 2023, www.plantnursery.com, accessed 4.9.2023, with color photo. 
PLAN003 -  Plantus viridis 'Emerald Jester'  (HortScience, cultivar release 2021)
PLAN004 - Plantus 'First Lady Gaga' (GenomeExpress, download full cultivar DNA to your nursery replicator)
Genes Ab (white flowers), TtTt (extra tall, 38 inches), Hg (ground-hugging habit), LZ4 (thicker blade, more mite resistant), Rubrocal (bright red markings, trademarked PlantusDNA LLC, Berlin), Pet2 (short petiole, usually 1-2cm), GGgg (very glaucous leaf back), PF (PokerFace short corolla).
----end of OROC Data Sharing

These section begin with the first 4 letters of the genus plus  the serialized, chronologically accepted number of the registration in that genus.The first of these or PLAN001 is a classic link to a nursery website for more data. This one has not completed our Process Two where we include descriptive data. PLAN002 has completed either Process One (Iong detailed form or short form) or Process Two (staff researched) and contains a short description of the plant and it's history. PLAN003 shows a classic link to an academic publication which normally has detailed data until it can be extracted and added to our site. PLAN004 is really going out to the future when a patent rights organization will let you download the full cultivar DNA to your nursery's tissue culture lab replicator with a license.

Extraction and integration methods: the easiest way to extract this deliberately simple HTML code is to open your wordprocessor or webpage editor in WYSIWIG (real display) mode with cultivar.org (or another portal) in a second window. Select the portion you need from www.cultivar.org, Ctrl-C (copy), open your web editor and do Ctrl-V (paste). Select the section again and then format it for the fonts, colors, style sheets, etc. you use of your site.

OROC Data Sharing:
  • Permissions and Guidelines 
    • All reuse of OROC data must include a link back to this page or cultivar.org on the same page the user views it. 
      • Hiding this information on a small "credits" or biography list does not meet this requirement. 
      • Individual tweets, message, or small, restricted data entries are exempt for this credit so long as your website provides the credit
      • If you are using the data in a spreadsheet or database, the user must be able to link to OROC with a specific sheet, header, or other portion in the standalone file (ie. another sheet in .xls)
      • You respect the content and copyrights of sites we link to and acknowledge that they are not part of OROC Data Sharing (unless clearly stated by the authors of those sites) and these purely informational links under the use terms of those respective sites.
      • Please consider use of a free OROC logo. Logo use is optional.
    • You may copy all text and HTML code (no images except OROC logos) at cultivar.org and other portals beginning...
        • Under the OROC registration logo followed by an OROC Registration Number, that same line or paragraph only, or until a phrase, whichever is shorter....and ending with text.....
        •  such as "---end of OROC Data Sharing" or a line ends, paragraph ends, section ends, another logo appears, new table cell or row, or another topic appears. In most cases we will try to keep OROC free data at the bottom of a genus or species cell on each cultivar.org table. Other sites may use different restrictions and delimiters. A nice example is given above.
    • Formats: Our HTML code is simple, yes, even crude, this is intended to allow all parties over all nations the most easy, efficient access to this data without even intermediate knowledge of coding. We support the most simple of cut and paste techniques because OROC is not going to be techno-elitist or limited to the most skilled webmasters in a few, richer countries.We want a third grader to be able to do it. And hopefully some botanists too.
      • You may reformat the data for social media, your website, spreadsheets, or database so long as no restrictions stated here are violated. We want to encourage creativity, new approaches, technolgoies, and applications. 
      • You may not reformat or arrange the data in a way the compromises the meaning of the plant descriptions, rules of nomenclature in general (such as delating specific epithets), or removing trademark designations.
    • Use of Logos. Users may use, code, and embed on their sites any OROC logo on this page if not modified in any way except for size, brightness, contrast, sharpness, or quality. 
      • You may convert any PNG (transparent) logo to JPG or other format if your website requires a fixed background color. 
      • If you require a specialized or customer logo for OROC data please contact use. We can provide a wide range of images at no cost for the exclusive purpose of promoting this project.
    • Any webpage or screen using OROC must contain a life, active link to this OROC page to cultivar.org to assure readers know how and where to registered their new plant. 
    • Language Translations. Translated text is allowed in extracted data but please be very diligent in monitoring for changes to meaning and context.
    • Paid books and other purchased media with OROC data; You may not sell any OROC data as a standalone ebook, PDF, EPUB, spreadsheet, database, or any other representation of the data etc. unless 
      • It is part of a larger, more complete reference (ie. John Doe's Guide to Perennials or Great New Conifers) , blog (Mary's New Garden Plants), or website (Mike's Ginkgo Page). 
      • The OROC data is fully integrated and part of the document and not an appended section or supplementary file of any kind, fully intertwined and mixed in with the author's own material, paragraphs, and owned content.
      • The OROC data is no more than 10% of the sold content by any measure including bytes, bits, or total page percentages. 
      • You must include credits or a bibiographic reference to OROC such as the Literature Citation guideline below or a similar version. 
      • If you work is online or digital, a live, active hyperlink must be provided to this page or cultivar.org
      • If your work contains more than 10% OROC data it must be offered at no cost or expense to the general public or the OROC data must be removed. 
      • All textbooks and education materials will be considered paid or purchased unless students pay no tuition, course, or attendance fees.
    • Free media with OROC: 
      • You may provide free copies of OROC data in printed, DVD, thumb-drive, or other hard media form so long as no fee over $3.00 US (2015, indexed for inflation) is charged for duplication, postage, handling, taxes, and all other services. The buyer must be able to receive and use the free media for no cost over this fee and no considerations or other purchases conditioned upon it. 
      • You may reuse up to 100% of OROC content if the website is free and there are no fees or purchase of any kind charged for access to sections wirth OROC data. 
        • Examples of correct use: a garden blog which is free for everyone to access, Facebook page that is open to the general public, arboretum website where OROC data is shared from a special page or appended to a free article.
        • Examples of incorrect use: a blog which only your paid clients are allowed to access (unless it consists of less than 10% OROC content by any measure), garden newsletter or ebook download site which only paid members receive (again, unless less than 10% OROC), handout at a university or botanical garden course consisting only of OROC data or more than 10% of the handout if fees or tuition are charged for the class, and any ebook or website which uses OROC data in any amount without credit citations and link to OROC or cultivar.org.
    • Literature citation .  Please use these guidelines as formats and examples.
      • Hatch, Laurence C. (editor). [current year]. Open Registration of Cultivars (OROC). [website accessed. currently www.cultivar.org]. [data accessed]
      • Hatch, Laurence C. (editor). 2027. Open Registration of Cuiltivars (OROC). www.somefuturewebsite.com. Accessed March 3, 2027.
      • or website you used to extract data. Check with that website to be sure you are not extracting any of their own content.
    • You must respect the trademarks, Plant Patent, Plant Breeders Rights, and other legal frameworks, never modify this informationh or removing the prescribed marks at any time. If you believe any designation or content to be incorrect, you must submit the requested changes with documentation to ornamentals    @  lycos.com for review and approval. 
    • Creating your own OROC Data Portal: we want people to share this data and then share it freely with others, over and over, around the world. There is one problem. If you or I add our own personal plant evaluations or comments to OROC data, this mixes up this free data with our own writing product. The best solution in our tests is to clearly set aside or mark in some color or font your own copyrighted comments to distinguish them from OROC data.Here are two solutions:
      • PLAN0013 - Plantus albus 'Cascading Snow' - 4 ft. tall x 8 ft, wide, very low, cascading. Leaves 4.5 in. long x 1.2 in. wide, more narrow ly ovate to ovate-elliptic than 'Albus'. Flowers white. Selected by Novo-plantus Nursery, Metropolis, New York 2031. MY EVALUATION: needs about 4 years to develop good form by active pruning. Flowers are more sparse for me than 'Snow Mountain', slightly more mildew resistant during hot summer 2029.
      • PLAN0013 - Plantus albus 'Cascading Snow' - 4 ft. tall x 8 ft. wide, very low, cascading.  Leaves 4.5 in. long x 1.2 in. wide, more narrowly ovate to ovate-elliptic than 'Albus'. Flowers white. Selected by Novo-plantus Nursery, Metropolis, New York 2031.  Our 2015-2029 trial data.
      • Be sure the user of your OROC Data Portal is told what sections are off limits such the dark red italicized text or a link behind or near that paragraph.  
      • You do not need to offer a Data Portal to use OROC data.
    • A program called OROC Image Sharing is under development and will specify under which conditions and rules images may be used. 
    • Conditional Permissions. These permissions may be removed, modified, or cancelled without remedy or notice at any time by OROC.  All use of OROC data is conditional that the user regular consult this file for permission, use, and rights changes. 
  • Tell us about your website. We'd love to direct visitors to there from here and become a true network of cultivar data distributors. Send us your URL and any approaches and formats that will make it stand out from the others. Sell it! Write a press release if you can. We want to recognize creative, highly effective, and brilliant uses of OROC data and hope to have an award program in future.


Copyright 2015. Laurence C. Hatch. All Rights Reserved.
ornamentals @  lycos.com


OROC Data Portal Tools
This section will grow to include many tools to help you get more from your free OROC data. We encourage developers and users to submit code, ideas, apps, examples of their sites, and anything else you wish to share free with others. We will assume you have read and understand How to Extract OROC Data From Cultivar.org

Use of Logos. Users may use, code, and embed on their sites any OROC logo on this page if not modified in any way except for size, brightness, contrast, sharpness, or quality. 
  • You may convert any PNG (transparent) logo to JPG or other format if your website requires a fixed background color. 
  • If you require a specialized or customer logo for OROC data please contact use. We can provide a wide range of images at no cost for the exclusive purpose of promoting this project.

Free OROC PNG Logos - these are transparent and best for sites without a white, gray, or pale background since the font is a light silver.

It is optional but we strongly encourage that the OROC logo include a clickable link behind it to this page or cultivar.org




Free OROC JPG Logos - these are best for sites with white, silver, gray, or pale background colors as the background is fixed. Feel free to modify the color (hue settings) as you wish.











Simple HTML editing tips - OROC as you see it currently on cultivar.org is deliberately done in simple, easy to cut, paste, and edit code. Other data portals will certainly use other code, scripts, and styles. The original cultivar.org data is simple black letters on a white background using span style setting like the code below.

 <span style="background-color: white; color: black;">ILEX014
- &nbsp;Ilex cassine 'Tensaw' - 15-20 ft. tall x 10-15 ft. wide, more
heavily branched than some forms, narrowly to moderate pyramidal, crown
often rounded with age. Leaves light green, very ovate, darker green
with maturity. Panhandlegrowers.com, accessed 5.9.2015.</span><br>

You can get different combinations of font color and background by simply changing the words white and black to whatever colors you prefer.

" - &nbsp" puts a dash and space before the scientific name of the cultivar.

XML Format - Some of you may ask about XML and can it should it be done with our cultivar data. We decided not to go that route because it would slow down our data delivery with all the extra coding requirements. Secondly, XML would be less useful to garden writers with basic HTML blogs, social media feeds, ebook documents, and such. Yet it remains a good idea! In fact, the NOD II Syntax has be converted to XML a time or two. This would be a short example using full terminology but NOD II abbreviations work just as well.

<cultivars>
             <name>Plantus viridis 'Longmire'</name>
             <height>20</height>
             <width>10</width>
              <habit>globose</habit>
              <leafcolor>green - dark</leafcolor>
              <fallcolor>red, gold</fallcolor>
              <sourceurl>http://www.plantnursery.com</sourceurl>
</cultivars>

There are over 1000 papers devoted to XML database for botanical taxonomic work and we found no system that worked for our cultivated material. That literature is rich and interesting for both describing wild species and citing literature - which to us can be cultivars and nursery catalogs.

We can't go into all the advantages and disadvantages of XML here but it is worth noting that an XML file can be converted to SQL and pretty much any powerful database application format. If you start with an XLS (Excel) spreadsheet, those columns of plant triats can then convert to XML and a dozen other formats.

If someone wants to convert some or all of existing registrations to XML or another format please contact us and we'll gladly recognize and link to your project site.


Data Formats for Data Sharing

OROC data will be shared by one of three main formats, one preliminary for quick additional and other two for more mature, complete information. Most registrations will starting in FORMAT ONE and mature to FORMAT TWO. Those we have lifted by author's permission from other documents (see Davidia at cultivar.org) will keep their original format.

FORMAT ONE – Preliminary (Name+URL or Name only, sometimes with short descriptions or notes)
PLAN003 – Plantus albus SNOW GHOST ‘Blizzard3’
PLAN017 – Plantus albus ‘Double Glow’ (Plantus Nursery Alabama) – first white-flowered clone with white-margined leaves.
 
FORMAT TWO – Full Mature Description
This is similar in field order to FORMAT THREE or NOD II Syntax in the order of traits: plant form, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, other traits, and then documentation and links.
 
PLAN008 – Plantus x roseus ‘Glory of Raleigh’ – 12  in. tall x 24-30 in. wide, dense, compact, mounded, slower and smaller than ‘Rose Queen’. Leaves 1.2cm long x 0.5cm wide, elliptic, dentate in upper half, very rusty tomentose below until late summer, dark green, very glossy above. Flowers rich rose-pink (Pantone 184 to 191), 2.2-2.5cm wide, inflorescence very dense, 181-234 flowers per panicle, little to faint fruit scent. Male clone, fruitless, no landscape mess, also non-invasive as no seedlings. John Doe Rare Plant Nursery, Blueberry Hills, New Jersey, cross of ‘Rose Queen’ x ‘Green Midget’, backcrossed to a dwarf, unnamed seedling of Plantus minor subsp. parvifolius 2031, introduced to US trade 2038, to Europe in 2039. First published in John Doe Rare Plant Nursery Catalog Fall 2038: 6-8, with color photo. 
 
FORMAT THREE – Standardized NOD II Syntax
This format was developed in the 1990's for the New Ornamentals Database (NOD) by the New Ornamentals Society. It has been revised several times since then. NOD II is used in such popular references as Hatch's Perennials, Cultivars of Woody Plants, and HITS. It consists of 2-5 letter abbreviations following by a colon and space, then a description of the trait or top in full sentence form. It is easy to understand and can be done in blocks or even without line breaks between the traits. There is prescribed order of traits. Each trait is optional so unlike a fixed database we can save space. We are using the block or line break version such as:
 
Accepted plant name [botanical author, literature citation] (synonyms with authors, citations when possible), (hybrid parentage if appropriate)
------------------------------------ general  form and branching
ht: (height x width) + (in X years)
ha: (habit)
st: (stems) or tw: (twigs)
tsp: (thorns, spines, prickles)
bk: (bark)
------------------------------------- foliage
lc: (leaf color)
ls: (leaf shape)
lll, lw: (leaf length, leaf width)
la: (leaf apex)
lb: (leaf base)
lm: (leaf margin)
lv: (leaf vestiture/hairs)
lt: (leaf type or leaf thickness)
afc: (autumn fall color)
------------------------------------ flowers
fc: (flower color)
fd: (flower dimensions)
fq: (flower quantity)
ff: (flower fragrance)
bt: (bloom time)
infl: (inflorescence)
----------------------------------- fruit
frc: (fruit color)
frq: (fruit quantity)
frt: (fruit type)
frd: (fruit dimensions)
sex: (gender of clone, male or female)
---------------------------------- resistances and adaptability
dr: (disease resistance)
ir: (insect resistance)
ch: (cold hardiness rating)
lu: (landscape use notes and ideas)
----------------------------------- origins and documentation
or: (origin)
in: (introduction)
pat: (plant patent or pbr)
tm: (trademark)
ns: (nomenclatural status or discussion of name history)
gen: (genetics, ploidy level, cytology, known genes, name of mutation, etc.)
reg: (registration of cultivar, if not OROC)
hsp: (herbarium specimen)
lsp: (living specimen)
so: (source, usually retail, mailorder nursery URL link, typically we honor the first listing we find)
web: (web url of interest)
li: (literature citation) - main name citations on the first line(s) with the accepted name and it's synonyms. 
 
 
There are more than 40 other standardized NOD II abbreviations. We will provide these at a later date for advanced users and our Registrars. The NOD II Syntax accepts your own additions without abbreviation such as "
 
Field names can be combined as one line, separated by commas with one colon such as this one combining patent, origin, and introduction on two lines:
 
pat, or, in: US Plant Patent #1107 to John Doe, Metropolis, New York, random seedling 1977,
pat, or, in: introduced 1983, not widely in retail trade until 1987 in US
 
Each field abbreviation may be used more than one line and span more than one line to form paragraphs of text with full sentences. The availability of long endless paragraphs in NOD II has merits as well as the ability to embed videos and photos with it, something nearly impossible with a fixed-field database model.

ns: the connection between 'Red Queen' and 'Superbus' is confused. Smith's Plantus Shop offered 'Red Queen' in their 1942
ns: Catalog (pages 32-33) with this note 'sometimes sold as superbus or superbus roseus but our stock is superior to all others
ns: evaluated here'. Since we do not have any literature for the original nature and origins of 'Superbus' or 'Superbus Roseus' we
ns: are recognizing Smith's stock as distinct under 'Red Queen'. Wilson in his 1982 monograph PLANTUS FOR MODERN
ns: GARDENS said 'Red Queen' and 'Superbus' are 'hopelessly mixed up in the trade, mingled, and sold interchangeably. The
ns: best material, perhaps the true 'Red Queen' is more vigorous and with a larger corolla than some stock circulating today
ns: as 'Superbus'. Yet I have also seen weak, small-flowered material sold as 'Red Queen'. '
 
Here is one example:
 
Plantus vulgaris ‘Green Gem’ Hatch, Cultivars of Woody Plant 2024: 35 (P. vulgaris ‘Viridis Minor’ US trade c. 1962, post-1959 Latin name)
ht: 20cm tall x 45cm wide (10 years)
ha: dense, compact, semi-dwarf, less tufted than ‘Emerald Mound’
st: reddish-brown, semi-showy
tsp: spineless clone
bk: light gray on older stems, only semi-showy in winter
------------------------------------- foliage
lc: darker green than species typical (Pantone 349 to 350)
ll, lw: 1.8-2.2cm long x 0.5-0.9cm wide
ls: narrowly elliptic to elliptic-linear, narrower than ‘Jade Parade’ (more elliptic to broadly elliptic)
la: acuminate, sharper than ‘Jade Parade’(acute to subacuminate)
lb: rotund
lm: entire, no marginal apical teeth as ‘Green Magic’
lv: slightly pubescent below, becoming glabrous by summer
lt: thicker blades, more durable
afc: yellow shades, semi-showy, not red as ‘Green Magic’ and ‘Winter Glo’
------------------------------------ flowers
fc: rich reddish-pink (Pantone 198), less pink than ‘Green Mound’ (Pantone 187)
fd: inflor. 2.0-3.1 cm long, corolla 5.5-5.8mm wide
fq: more floriferous, up to 27 per stem
ff: light spice scent, not strongly fruity as ‘Jade Parade’
bt: earlier in season (May 2-10 in northern Virginia)
infl: up to 212 flowers
----------------------------------- fruit
frc: clear, clean cherry red (Pantone 032), no yellow hues as in ‘Green Magic’
frq: lower fruit count, less messy in landscape, generally 2-10% flower set fruit
frt: oblate-globose
frd: 2.1-2.8cm
---------------------------------- resistances and adaptability
dr: high Microsorus Strain 12 resistance, fair to medium powdery mildew resistance
ir: thicker blades show very little mite spotting
ch: USDA 4b, more cold hardy than random species seedlings (USDA 4b-5)
lu: small hedge, foundation plant, container specimen
----------------------------------- origins and documentation
or, in: unknown, thought to be Harvest Nursery, Kellogg, Virginia (closed about 1972) c. 1960 as ‘Viridis Minor’
ns: (nomenclatural status or discussion of name history): never published before January 1, 1959 so name must be given vernacular name. Originators
ns: and originator nursery cannot be contacted for permission to chance name
lsp: Federal Arboretum 72-012 from Metropolis Arboretum (from Harvest Nursery)
so: http://www.coolnewplants.com
so: http://www.theplantusstore.com
web: (web url of interest): www.plantcultivars.com
li: Catloginn, I.B. 1978. The best dwarf Plantus cultivars. Plantus Society Journal: 13: 142-149.
li: Botnizer, Ima. 2021. Harvest Nursery and their lost cultivars. J. Heirloom Gardening 2: 151-152.

A simple example of NOD II condensed down with link breaks is:

Plantus nigrus 'The Raven' - ht: 20 ft. tall x 12 ft. wide, taller than 'Black Cat' (10 ft. x 6 ft.), ha: ovoid, lc: dark blackish-purple, not red as 'Tell Tale', afc: yellow to gold shades, dr: mite resistant, so: gothplants.com, or: E.A. Poe, Nevermore Nursery, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. ns: similar to the old cultivar 'Lenore' (considered lost)

Link format instructions
The format for links with NOD II syntax is driven by the topic such as source (so:), general web link (web:), literature (li:), and patent (pat, or, in:) and other descriptors or topics. Using the FORMAT ONE and FORMAT TWO we recommend this format. Theoretical examples:
  • MAIN NAME LINK: PLAN039 - Plantus nigrus 'Wild Bear'  <------- first link with plant name should be retail, mailorder source, or if lacking the originator's own website, or if that is lacking, the next best reference. We favor the "buy it now" mentality but if the originator sells or lists vendors, this is good too. In general, we reward the first nursery we find listing a cultivar. 
  • PATENT AND PBR LINKS: PLAN039 - Plantus nigrus 'Wild Bear' - 20cm tall x 43cm wide, low-spreading, decumbent. Leaves very dark, purplish-black becoming a dark dark blackish-green.  US Plant Patent #39012 to I.B. Plantsman, Carolina Plantus Nursery, Bonecold, North Carolina in 2028 as sport of 'Brown Bear',l  introduced 2031. <------- the number of the Patent, PBR, or other legal protection can and should when possible be a link to the national website describing the plant, or alternatively the convenient Google Patents PDF files based on US and other patent files. 
  •  ORIGINATING OR OTHER NURSERY LINKS: PLAN039 - Plantus nigrus 'Wild Bear' - 20cm tall x 43cm wide, low-spreading, decumbent. Leaves very dark, purplish-black becoming a dark dark blackish-green.  US Plant Patent #39012 to I.B. Plantsman, Carolina Plantus Nursery, Bonecold, North Carolina in 2028 as sport of 'Brown Bear', introduced 2031. <---- this adds a link to the originating nursery if different from the main link under the plant name itself.
  • ADDITIONAL REFERENCE LINKS: PLAN039 - Plantus nigrus 'Wild Bear' - 20cm tall x 43cm wide, low-spreading, decumbent. Leaves very dark, purplish-black becoming a dark dark blackish-green.  US Plant Patent #39012 to I.B. Plantsman, Carolina Plantus Nursery, Bonecold, North Carolina in 2028 as sport of 'Brown Bear',l  introduced 2031. Evaluated 2032 by Metropolis Horticultural Gardens, given a 4.2 of 5.0 rating.  Color photo courtesy of Florida Plantus Society. <---- this shows additional links for a plant evaluation report in PDF from a major garden and also a link a color photo by a plant society.  If your portal owns or has permissions to use a color image, please include it with a thumbnail before the plant name.
  • EMBEDDED LINKS: YouTube, Vimeo, JPG images (owned by your portal or with permissions) or other documents having a clickable frame, logo, or thumbnail should exist before the plant name listing and be referenced in the texts. Photos and other images the portal does not own should be in the form of traditional, clickable links which do not suggest or imply ownership of content.


OROC Register
The OROC Register will be something like an annual or semi-annual archive of registrations with all data from the Data Sharing program plus selected images. Initially it will be offered as a standalone PDF file (ebook) for use on any phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, ebook reader, or other device and be offered 100% free with the major services such as Google Play Books, iTunes, and Amazon Kindle. When a large volume of registrations has been compiled we will considered a printed, bound edition, sold at or near cost. We hope to do a demonstration PDF ebook by summer 2015 to show the rich diversity of registrations and the value of the data as a horticultural reference.
Volunteer - Join Us!

First of all, if you have a new cultivar to register or know of one, please start there and submit your data. Contact us at ornamentals@lycos.com for any of the opportunties listed here.

There are several opportunities:

1. Create your own OROC Data Portal - share our free data from your website or other platform and get the word out on new plants. Just read the appropriate sections, cut and paste your data, and let us know what you're doing so we can link to it.

2. Apply to be a Commissioned Cultivar Registrar (CCR) to review incoming registrations and find new ones on your own.
  1. You must be available within our 24 hour response guideline or the approval will be passed on to another CCR.  It is okay to miss some, and registrations will go to more than one CCR, and we know everyone is busy. This is a very time sensitive process because of our promises to the gardening and nursery communities to communicate well and communicate fast. 
  2. If you have a B.S. or higher degree in Horticulture, Botany, Plant Science, Agronomy, or related field, AND have a working knowledge of cultivar level (ICNCP) nomenclature, all training is waived this first year. Otherwise, we have a free study and exam program in plain English which takes 2-3 hours on average, up to 5 hours for a few. 
  3. We want CCR volunteers to be familiar with more than one genus, so please list the top 5 genera you know well and an interest in registering. Approval is done by 1-5 CCR to get a wider set of opinions and experience on the cultivar in question. You can specialize in conifer or woody plant or perennial registration if you wish.  We're especially interested in CCR willing to work with annual/bedding plants and tropical/interior house plants as those groups have long been ignored .
  4. CCR must be reactive and proactive, evaluating submissions and also going out to look for new cultivars on the web, printed catalogs, and anywhere else they might hide. We expect CCR to proactively submit at least 5 registrations a year, format the data in any of our three formats for quicker inclusion, and be able to describe the plant in taxonomic terms (when those are available) and in a manner consistant with our existing registrations - that is, a fixed order of traits, as objective as possible, including active links, and using short (not long paragraph style), very factual descriptions of each cultivar. 
3. Assist with and develop new data technologies and formats. That means the nerds and computer geeks among us. If you are willing to volunteer time to experiment with new data delivery and application tools, please sign up.


OROC News/Change History

5.17.2015 - added Volunteer (Join us!) section.
5.16.2015 - added Link Format instructions.
5.14.2015 - added OROC Register, XMl, and HTML editing tips sections.
5.13.2015 - added Data Format examples and NOD II field glossary and syntax.
5.11.2015 - added Trademark rejection and conversion policies under Principle 20.
4.28.2015 - created OROC Data Portal Tools section for developers tools, code, apps, tips, ideas, etc. to promote better data sharing.
4.28.2015 - created, added PNG and JPG logos for use
4.27.2015 - established black on white background policy for OROC registration on cultivar.org portal as most developers use this style and do not want to convert the cultivar.org background.