The contributions of crop wild relatives (CWR) to food security depend on their conservation and accessibility for use. The United States contains a diverse native flora of CWR, including those of
important cereal, fruit, nut, oil, pulse, root and tuber, and vegetable crops, which may be threatened in their natural habitats and underrepresented in plant conservation repositories. To determine
conservation priorities for these plants, we developed a national inventory, compiled occurrence information, modeled potential distributions, and conducted threat assessments and conservation gap analyses for 600 native taxa.