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Could you please tell me some collectable, rare cacti and succulents that I should definitely buy.

With your climate, I think I'd be experimenting with tropical cacti like Discocactus, Arrojadoa, Micranthocereus, Uebelmannia, also Madagascan Euphorbias and trying to get hold of Didierea, as well as Stapeliads like Edithcolea.

Thanks a lot. Well I have a couple of discocacti and one micranthocereus in my collection. Would I be able to grow Pseudolithos harardheranus, Stenocereus eruca and Turbinicarpus alonsoii. I normally collect the hard to get ones.

Tephrocactus geometricus also

Sometimes when I want to kill some time I browse through different genera on this site and pick which out species I'd want

Buy what you like not what is rare..
You will enjoy your collection much more if you focus on the plants you love the most..

What's your definition of rare? I've seen this question come up a few times and in each case the question is not well defined. A cactus could be rare in cultivation but not rare in habitat or critically endangered in habitat but common in cultivation. And even in your case it could be rare in Sri Lanka cultivation but common in European cultivation or elsewhere. Another less talked about rarity is the rarity of the growth form. Astrophytums are in no way rare in cultivation, but certain formations and patterns of growth are. As such they are highly sought after. Finally, some cacti are rare for a moment. Aztekium are still technically rare in a sense based on their habitat, but in cultivation they are relatively easy to buy. Fifteen years ago, there was quite the premium price and rush to buy seeds.

With all of that said, buy what you like for however you like. If you like cacti due to rarity then go for it. If you like cacti for their demand, go for it. If you like them for their colour, go for it. It's up to you. I learned a long time ago from another hobby if you collect what you think the community or your peers will appreciate you will likely be let down.

Sorry for the late reply. I do buy cacti that I like even if they are very common. By rare I mean endangered in habitat and rare in cultivation. I'd like to add some uncommon ones to the collection(shape,colour, growth, etc... common ones would be ok like orthegocactus,) is blossfeldiana and Yavia uncommon.

Rare in cultivation can often mean plants that were common once but now nurserymen do not bother to propagate anymore. However often still available as seed, though few in your country may want to bother growing from seed.

Also they can now be rare since they were less attractive to buyers, therefore were not extensively propagated. For instance the yellow flowered Gymnocalicioide Notocactus like N. arachnites, whereas the purple flowered more attractive one N. uebelmannianus is now common. However try and find the yellow flowered form N. uebelmannianus v. flaviflorus? All were equally common in Europe when Uebelmann first introduced them.

Another case is Gymnocalycium horstii, the type form has a white flower. The more saleable pink flowered G. horstii v. bueneckeri is now common and so often just listed as G. horstii. The white form is so little grown that if you Google Gymnocalycium horsti usually up comes the pink flowered variety masquerading as horstii rather than the true species. In fact it is now getting almost impossible to find a picture of the white flowered type form of G. horstii on the Web, because most illustrated are G. horstii are in fact v. bueneckeri.

https://kaktusydevera.webnode.cz/album/ ... rstii-jpg/

Generally speaking so called rare plants are usually slow growing or hard to propagate commercially, therefore dealers cannot produce them for a reasonable price. Often they can grow three or four generations of other quicker growing species or genera in that time and though these are cheaper individually they make more money in total than wasting time and greenhouse space on the slow growing ones.

Most cacti are available as seeds from a dealer somewhere in the world, but few want to grow the slower growers from seed themselves and want ready made plants. Unfortunately due to CITES etc these are not available cheaply as mature plants from habitat any longer and therefore somebody needs to have grown them from seed and so expensive if you can find them.

CITES has also meant it is hard for amateurs to import plants grown cheaply in more favourable climates into their own country where they grow slower, as they were able to in the past. Needing expensive heat in colder climates to raise from seed to maturity pushes up the price, Therefore availability of plants will now largely be restricted to what is available in your own country, rather than being brought in from abroad unless as seed. But then somebody somewhere has take the trouble to raise them from seed.