ABSTRACT
India is a major centre of origin and diversity of crop plants. It occupies a special significance among the major gene-rich countries of the world owing to its immensely rich landrace diversity in major agri-horticultural crops and their wild relatives. Presently about 18 000 species of flowering plants exist in India of which nearly a third are endemic. These include 166 domesticated species of economic importance along with over 320 species of their wild relatives and around 500 species of medicinal value (Arora, 1988). The valuable plant genetic resources are, however, being lost at a very fast rate because of their replacement by high yielding varieties or due to heavy pressure on their natural habitats.
