Page "Cultivar" Paragraph 11

In this paper Bailey used only the rank of species for the cultigen but it was clear to him that many domesticated plants were more like botanical varieties than species, and that appears to have motivated the suggestion of the new classification category cultivar, which is generally assumed to be a contraction of the words cultivated and variety.

However, Bailey was never explicit about the etymology of the word, and it has been suggested that it is a contraction of the words cultigen and variety, which seems more appropriate.