Cactus Field Number Database
Search a cactus and succulent database built entirely around collector field numbers. Look up any of more than 59,000 records by collector, locality, or species name to trace where a plant was first found in habitat and who documented it. Every specimen we grow at rarecactus.com is matched against these records, so the provenance on each rare cactus page traces back to a real field collection.
A cactus collector field-number database is a tool used to identify wild specimens by searching for collector acronyms and field numbers. For example, FR 207 is Friedrich Ritter's number for a Copiapoa cinerea he collected at Taltal, Chile in June 1954. Each record traces the plant back to where it was collected (locality), the date collected, and the collector's name, acting as a "birth certificate" for the specimen.
The rarecactus.com field-number database is free to search and currently indexes 59,132 records from 280 collectors. Use this tool to select one or multiple genera.
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New to field numbers? Read our collector’s guide to cactus field numbers for how the codes work and how to read them.
Cite & download
The rarecactus.com field number database indexes 59,132 collection records from 280 collectors across 20 genera, 10,273 of them with GPS coordinates. It is free to use and openly licensed. If you cite or build on the data, please reference the release below.
Suggested citation
Kealer, B. (2026). Cactus Field Number Database [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20792878
License CC0 · DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20792878 · Darwin Core-aligned CSV, 16 columns · updated September 2026
Data sources and acknowledgments
The collector field numbers gathered here are the work of the people who assigned them in the field and the volunteers who have compiled and published them over decades. rarecactus.com brings that published record together, then normalizes localities, removes duplicates across sources, adds coordinates, and links each entry to our encyclopedia. We are grateful to the compilations below and name them so their contribution stays visible.
- BCSS Field Number Query (Ralph Martin), the reference compilation of cactus and succulent collector numbers maintained for the British Cactus and Succulent Society.
- cl-cactus.com (CLudwig), collector field numbers and habitat photographs.
- Harald Jainta, Wild Lithops, field observations behind our Lithops population records, shared through our collaboration.
- John Miller, the 2001 Ariocarpus field-number compilation.
- GBIF, georeferenced herbarium and occurrence records used to verify coordinates.
The field numbers themselves are factual records of who found a plant and where. We publish them to keep that provenance visible, not to claim it as our own.
How this database is maintained
The database is maintained by Brian Kealer at Rare Cactus. New collector lists and corrections are added as they come in, and each release gets a version number.
Every release is also deposited on Zenodo under the CC0 public-domain dedication. Versions have been archived there since June 2026, and one DOI, 10.5281/zenodo.20792878, always points to the latest. That copy does not depend on this site staying online.
Found an error in a field number or a locality? Write to brian@rarecactus.com and the fix goes into the next release.