Maybe Tony can expand on this, but as I read the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, there are four key points in order for a cultivar name to be valid if it was named after January 1, 1959.
First, the cultivar name must be published in printed matter and distributed to or made available to the public. A catalog should work fine.
Second, the publication must be clearly dated at least to the year.
Third, the publication of the cultivar name must be accompanied by a description or a reference to a previously published description of the cultivar.
Fourth, the cultivar needs to exist. That's kind of open ended, but it's pointless to hang a cultivar name on one plant and then never reproduce that cultivar. I have seen this a lot with Adeniums. People get a plant with an interesting flower, then give it a cultivar name, but it never gets propagated and made available to the public.
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