A
cultigen (from the Latin
cultus - cultivated, and
gens - kind) is a plant that has been deliberately altered or selected by humans; it is the result of
artificial selection. These "man-made" or
anthropogenic plants are, for the most part, plants of commerce that are used in
horticulture,
agriculture and
forestry. Because cultigens are defined by their mode of origin and not by where they are growing, plants meeting this definition remain cultigens whether they are
naturalised in the wild, deliberately planted in the wild, or growing in cultivation. Cultigens arise in the following ways: selections of variants from the wild or cultivation including vegetative
sports (aberrant growth that can be reproduced reliably in cultivation); plants that are the result of
plant breeding and selection programs;
genetically modified plants (plants modified by the deliberate implantation of genetic material); and
graft-chimaeras (plants grafted to produce mixed tissue, the
graft material possibly from wild plants, special selections, or
hybrids).