Ex situ conservation of endangered plants of the US

An interesting post on the Denver Botanic Garden’s blog led me to the Center for Plant Conservation‘s ((Hosted by the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri.)) database of the National Collection of Endangered Plants of the US, which I’m ashamed to say I knew nothing about. It is interesting to us here because it includes crop wild relatives like Helianthus species. There’s also lots of information on how to fight invasives, which has been the subject of some discussion here in the past few days.

Underutilized plants policies unpacked

Agrobiodiversity policy wonks will be delighted that the recently-morphed Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species (GFU), in cooperation with the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative (GRPI), has just come out with the snappily titled “An overview of the international regulatory frameworks that influence the conservation and use of underutilized plant species.” You can download it from the Bioversity International publications pages, along with a separate publication, “The role of policy in the conservation and extended use of underutilized plant species: a cross-national policy analysis.” Other, country-specific GFU policy studies are also available.