Pelargonium x fragrans, a cultivar

Pelargonium x fragrans is not a natural Pelargonium species, but a horticulturally developed hybrid created from P. odoratissimum and P. exstipulatum. The plants are common in South African and other gardens.

A hybrid is a plant resulting from cross-pollinating two different plant varieties or species, deliberately as in horticulture or naturally in the wild. Several cultivars have also been developed from the hybrid. Cultivar means that specimens had been selected from the wild or in cultivation for growing plants with desirable characteristics and maintained in stable form by propagation to warrant a marketable identity. There may be patent and thus property rights associated with cultivars, underpinned by varying legislation relating to plant breeding in many countries, including South Africa.

A cultigen is a plant deliberately altered or selected by people for commercial value in horticulture, agriculture or forestry. This study field is large, pioneered during the first half of the 20th century by Liberty Hyde Bailey, an American horticulturist. The difference between cultivars and cultigens: a cultigen is any plant with origin primarily due to intentional human activity, while a cultivar is a formally recognized category within cultigens, a specific cultivated variety of a species or hybrid, named and classified under the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP) (Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; Wikipedia).