SGVCSS: Member Profile:
Peter Sharp
First in  a series of brief  biographies of notable members of
the San Gabriel Valley Cactus and Succulent Society. 
Peter Sharp’s interest in Cactus began when he was a boy growing up in England. His mother bought him a Mammillaria wildii at Woolworth's. This  eventually led to membership in the National Cactus & Succulent Society and  the Cactus & Succulent Society of Great Britain (note: these two societies merged in 1983 into what is known today as the British Cactus & Succulent Society ). Peter was a founder- member  of the Mammillaria Society in 1960. Among his contemporaries were Bill Maddams and David Hunt.

Peter has made many trips to Mexico with Victor Turecek, Charles Glass & Bob Foster, Myron Kimnach, and many
others. It was on one of these trips in 1971 in the company
of Bill Lockwood, Bill Kidd and Earl Nidam (all now deceased ) that he discovered a new species of Echinocereus near the village of La Asencion in the state of  Nuevo Leon. This new species was eventually named in his honor as Echinocereus sharpii. It is somewhat ironic that an Echinocereus would be named after him when his main interest was in Mammillarias.

A visit to Peter’s house would disclose that his backyard consists of nothing but greenhouses (seven in number ). He is looking forward to the day that he can retire and devote full time to his avocation of raising succulents.