Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An organism, especially a cultivated plant, such as a banana, not known to have a wild or uncultivated counterpart.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun botany, horticulture A plant whose origin or selection is primarily due to intentional human activity.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[culti(vated) + –gen.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From culti(vated) + -gen

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Examples

  • If this population was typical of the Vaupés, it implied that Amazonian coca was a true cultigen; totally dependent on humans for its survival.

    One River Wade Davis 1996

  • It was highly unlikely that a dependent cultigen could be the ancestor of a species that was still capable of surviving under natural conditions.

    One River Wade Davis 1996

  • Trujillo is a true cultigen, grown in the hot desert under irrigation, utterly dependent on humans for its survival.

    One River Wade Davis 1996

  • If this population was typical of the Vaupés, it implied that Amazonian coca was a true cultigen; totally dependent on humans for its survival.

    One River Wade Davis 1996

  • It was highly unlikely that a dependent cultigen could be the ancestor of a species that was still capable of surviving under natural conditions.

    One River Wade Davis 1996

  • Trujillo is a true cultigen, grown in the hot desert under irrigation, utterly dependent on humans for its survival.

    One River Wade Davis 1996

  • "Cultivate, culture, they're all the same, though I would say in this country we're more a cultigen than a cultivar.

    A Darker Place King, Laurie R. 1999

Comments

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  • "a plant that has been deliberately altered or selected by humans; ... the result of artificial selection." -- wiki

    October 26, 2008

  • cultsure?

    September 21, 2009

  • The eugenics project resulted in

    An unsatisfactory cultigen.

    Reversing bold plans

    They bred Yankees fans

    Instead of a species of ultra-men.

    June 29, 2018

  • “The word cultigen was coined in 1918 by Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858–1954) an American horticulturist, botanist and cofounder of the American Society for Horticultural Science. He was aware of the need for special categories for those cultivated plants that had arisen by intentional human activity and which would not fit neatly into the Linnaean hierarchical classification of ranks used by the International Rules of Botanical Nomenclature (which later became the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants).”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cultigen&oldid=959642721

    Miss you, qms.

    August 14, 2020