Crop wild relatives, the wild progenitors and closely related cousins of cultivated plant
species, are sources of valuable genetic resources for crop improvement. Persisting gaps
in knowledge of taxonomy, distributions, and...

Botanic gardens play major roles in plant conservation globally. Since the 1980s, the number of botanic gardens worldwide and their involvement in integrating ex situ and in situ plant conservation has increased signifi cantly, with a growing focus on...

These best practices represent a compilation of previous CPC guidelines with updated
recommendations from current research on rare plant conservation. Seed science is a rapidly growing field. To keep abreast of changes in technology and practice...

During the last centuries, humans have transformed global ecosystems. With their temporal
dimension,herbaria provide the otherwise scarce long-termdata crucial for trackingecological and
evolutionarychangesover thisperiodof intense global...

The first two decades of the twenty-first century have seen a rapid rise in the mobilization of digital biodiversity data. This has thrust natural history museums into the forefront of biodiversity research, underscoring their central role in the...

Functional traits are increasingly used to understand the ecology of plants and to predict their responses to global changes. Unfortunately, trait data are unavailable for the majority of plant species. The lack of trait data is especially prevalent...

Access and benefit-sharing (ABS) refers to the way in which genetic resources
may be accessed, and how the benefits that result from their use are shared
between the people or countries using the resources (users) and the people or...

Plant breeders require genetic diversity to develop cultivars that are productive, nutritious,
tolerant of biotic and abiotic stresses, and make efficient use of water and fertilizer. The USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) is a...

Cycads are the most endangered of plant groups based on IUCN Red List assessments; all are in Appendix I or II of CITES, about 40% are within biodiversity ‘hotspots,’ and the call for action to improve their protection is longstanding. We contend that...

Selecting the geographic origin—the provenance—of seed is a key decision in restoration. The last decade has seen a vigorous debate on whether to use local or nonlocal seed. The use of local seed has been the preferred approach because it is expected...

The Standards of Excellence in Plant Collections Management developed by the Plant...

 A companion Self-Assessment Tool is now available to help you evaluate your organization’s current level of collections management. Use the results along with the...

This manual suggests standard practices that will insure the quality and preservation of the tissue and vouchers and their respective data. Although written for use by the Smithsonian Institution botanists it suggests a framework for collecting tissues...

The PCA Federal Committee, chaired by the Bureau of Land Management, developed the “National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration 2015-2020” in cooperation with Federal and non-Federal partners. The “National Seed Strategy for...

Internationally, gardens hold diverse living collections that can be preserved for genomic research. Workflows have been developed for genomic tissue sampling in other taxa (e.g., vertebrates), but are inadequate for plants. We outline a workflow for...

Last year's State of the World’s Plants report focused predominantly on synthesising knowledge of the numbers of different categories of plants: How many vascular plants are currently known to science? How many are threatened with extinction? What is...

This publication documents the 81 posters and oral presentations that were made from May 16-19, 2016 in Chicago, IL covering such topics as in situ conservation, ex situ conservation, identifying and assessing ecosystems/species to conserve,...