National Plant Collection
Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates A National Plant Collection is a registered and documented collection of a group of cultivated plants in the United Kingdom.<ref name="whatare">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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.<ref>Template:EW charity</ref>
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.<ref name="HG">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="start">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Collection holders must be members of Plant Heritage, and agree to stringent requirements for labelling, documentation, and propagation of the collection.<ref name="handbook">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> They may be individuals, botanic gardens, plant nurseries, local authority parks, or groups of people holding distributed collections.<ref name="whatare"></ref>
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.<ref name="start"></ref> There may be multiple collections covering the same plant group, which reduces the risk of rare plants being lost from extreme climatic events.<ref name="HG"></ref>
As of October 2023, there are over 700 collections comprising a total of over 95,000 plants.<ref name="whatare"></ref>