Article 5

1. Varieties of all botanical genera and species, including, inter alia, hybrids between genera or species, may form the object of Community plant variety rights.

2. For the purpose of this Regulation, 'variety' shall be taken to mean a plant grouping within a single botanical taxon of the lowest known rank, which grouping, irrespective of whether the conditions for the grant of a plant variety right are fully met, can be:

- defined by the expression of the characteristics that results from a given genotype or combination of genotypes,

- distinguished from any other plant grouping by the expression of at least one of the said characteristics, and

- considered as a unit with regard to its suitability for being propagated unchanged.

3. A plant grouping consists of entire plants or parts of plants as far as such parts are capable of producing entire plants, both referred to hereinafter as 'variety constituents'.

4. The expression of the characteristics referred to in paragraph 2, first indent, may be either invariable or variable between variety constituents of the same kind provided that also the level of variation results from the genotype or combination of genotypes.