I’d agree that would be a sad thing, but I can see it happening right now unfortunately. Currently many growers here are planting ‘White Sarah Bernhardt’ and ‘Red Sarah Bernhardt’, both have nothing to do with Sarah Bernhardt, except for the name. They are merely Chinese lactiflora cultivars which have been renamed to sell them easier. Of course it’s difficult to sell them under their original Chinese names, but it would be nice if they had been registered as synonyms with the American Peony Society (APS). Newer introductions that may be renamed ones or not also include: Athens, Dublin, Kiev, London… (see the site of Green Works), these seem to have been trademarked. At the flower auction, the same thing happens, several cultivars appearing that have never been properly registered.

Of course nearly all Chinese or Japanese cultivars have never been registered as well, I even wonder whether the ‘registered’ cultivars are only a minority of all peony cultivars. The APS is trying and I think the registrar does his very best, but I guess the registration price should be zero (for those amateur hybridizers in Asia that only earn a few dollars a day, any price is simply too high), online registration would be nice (a page where you fill out some fields, add a picture and simply ‘submit’ it, after which the cultivar is online) and some contact persons in other countries would be welcome as well (especially in Europe and Asia). The number of registrations at the APS is rising (they can fill half of the APS bulletin lately) and that’s a good thing, but I think there’s room for improvement still.