noun
- a plant that has been altered by humans through selective breeding and exists only in cultivation
Usage: botanical
Examples
- Corn is a cultigen that cannot survive in the wild without human intervention.
- Many of our food crops are cultigens developed over thousands of years.
- The banana we eat today is a cultigen quite different from its wild ancestors.
- Wheat is an ancient cultigen that has been cultivated for millennia.
- Scientists study cultigens to understand how agriculture shaped plant evolution.
- Unlike wild plants, cultigens depend entirely on human care for reproduction.