A National Plant Collection is a registered and documented collection of a group of cultivated plants in the United Kingdom.[1] National Plant Collections are part of a plant conservation scheme run by Plant Heritage, a registered charity which aims to protect and develop the biological and heritage resource of plants in UK gardens.[2]
Participating individuals or organisations undertake to collect and conserve living material of a particular group of plants, as well as research its history and cultivation.[3][4] Collection holders must be members of Plant Heritage, and agree to stringent requirements for labelling, documentation, and propagation of the collection.[5] They may be individuals, botanic gardens, plant nurseries, local authority parks, or groups of people holding distributed collections.[1]
Some collections are composed of a taxonomic group, such as a single genus or species. Others are defined by a horticultural group, such as cultivars with particular foliage characteristics or plants collected by a certain historical figure.[4] There may be multiple collections covering the same plant group, which reduces the risk of rare plants being lost from extreme climatic events.[3]
As of October 2023, there are over 700 collections comprising a total of over 95,000 plants.[1]