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NRC, B3--Rogers, Page 1.

----Note to Dr. Pye. I address myself to part vi of B3, and the item following it, where each of us is to provide some contributing element. In this, I am as much concerned with methods by which the conservation of G.R. can be affected, via organization and management as I am with the actual conservation. I speak of botanical gardens, public and private, as well as the various commercial seed houses, of which there are a large number.

In most countries botanical gardens formerly were the institutions in charge of introduction and spread of all types of plants, including those of commercial or food-producing interest as well as those of floricultural or other horticultural value. These institutions, at least in the United States, are today more likely concerned only with a relatively few of those plants of commercial or food producing importance, and much of their emphasis is on plants of floricultural importance. However, to make this generalization is to oversimplify the functions of botanical gardens, both public and private. Many of the larger institutions are interested in the distribution and classification of wild plants, both at home and abroad. They form a network of institutions that are concerned with inventories of the world's plant resources. The botanical gardens and allied museums (herbaria) exist either independently, or more frequently, in conjunction with some large university where botany is taught as a major scientific discipline. Through these institutions, we have the best opportunity to know what needs conservation, where the plants grow (geographic and environmental data) and where one may find any samples of the plant material, if these exist in some conservation program. Larger botanical gardens frequently maintain and