Cultivar group

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Under the botanical nomenclature of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), a cultivar group is any gathering of cultivars designated by common traits. Designated groups may include a group of yellow-flowering cultivars, a group of cultivars with variegated leaves, a group of cultivars resistant to a particular disease, etc. A cultivar may belong to more than one group (for example, it may be yellow-flowering, with variegated leaves and resistant to the disease at one and the same time).

ICNCP Art 9 Ex 10: "Solanum tuberosum 'Desiree' may be designated part of a Maincrop Group and a Redskin Group since both such designations may be practical to buyers of potatoes ..." [Unusual capitalization in original.]

Another reason for designating a group is when a well-known plant loses its taxonomic status (e.g. it ceases to be a "good" species or subspecies and becomes a synonym). Its botanical epithet may become a "group epithet". For example, Tetradium hupehense is sometimes regarded as being part of Tetradium daniellii, and the plants in question may be referred to as Tetradium daniellii hupehense group.

In the 2004 edition of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants the Group (with a capital G) became, with the cultivar, a formal classification category of cultivated plants defined in Article 3.1 as "a formal category for assembing cultivars, individual plants or assemblages of plants on the basis of defined similarity" ^[1].