Cultigen

A cultigen is a plant that is the result of artificial selection by humans. Liberty Hyde Bailey, an American botanist was the first to use the term, in 1918.^[1] Bailey noticed that the classification Linné introduced for plants was not useful for classifying plants which came from human cultivation and selection. He called the plants which grow in the wild without human selection indigens. A cultigen was:

" ... a domesticated group of which the origin may be unknown... [It has] such characters as to separate it from known indigens, and is probably not represented by any type specimen or exact description".

The point is that a cultigen cannot always be placed in the traditional Linnean system of botanical classification.

Bailey later changed his definition to "Plant or group known only in cultivation; presumably originating under domestication; contrast with indigen", which is the definition used above. Examples of cultigens are maize and cabbage.

1. ↑ Bailey L.H. 1918. The indigen and cultigen. Science series 2, 47:306-308