Summary of the proposalContextThe main objective of botanical gardens today is the conservation of biological diversity ex situ, taking into account the potential loss of this in due to environmental destruction. However, in the past, the main activity of botanical gardens was the accumulation and maintenance of the diversity that explorers brought back from unexplored regions, near and far, in order to make them available to growers to explore the potential that the plants captured. Many ornamental crops, now widely cultivated, were developed in this way, including palms and hedges, as well as some flowers such as roses and orchids. There is always a risk of loss of biodiversity, which would deprive us of finding its possible application for the benefit of humanity. However, the work of botanical gardens is essential for the conservation and development of the domestication process of certain plants that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. Currently, it is estimated that the diversity of plants in the world exceeds 250,000 species, of which only 7,000 are cultivated by humans as food, fiber, medicine, fodder, with a more or less degree of domestication, excluding ornamental plants, which could reach more than 28,000 cultivated species, although their numbers continue to increase (Khoshbakht and Hammer, 2008). Among these crops, the most important are cereals and their domestication took place several thousand years ago and probably some ornamental species that accompanied them became part of the crops that early human populations cloned for aesthetic reasons ( Heywood, 2002). Of the great diversity Cultivated by humans, 6.5 million varieties have been preserved in 1,400 ex situ conservation systems, but these are only a...... middle of paper .... .. conservation and use of (ornamental) genetic resources. Acta Horticulturae 760: 589-595. Facciuto, G, Pannunzio, MJ, Coviella, A. Bologna, P, Soto, S, Imhof, L and M Borja. 2007. Calibrachoa selection progresses in Argentina. Acta Horticulturae 813.Golding, J, Güsewell, S, Kreft, H, Kuzevanov, VY, Lehvävirta, S, Parmentier, I and M Pautasso. 2010. Species richness patterns in living collections of botanical gardens around the world: a question of socio-economics? Anne. Bot. 105:689-696. Heywood, V. 2002. Conservation and sustainable use of wild species as sources of new ornamental plants. Acta Horticulturae 508: 43-53. Khoshbakht K & K Hammer. 2008. How many plant species are cultivated? Genet Resour Crop Evol 55:925–928. Tay, D. 2007. Conservation and use of genetic material from ornamental herbaceous plants. In Anderson, NO (ed.) Flower Breeding and Genetics. Springer. PP. 113-175.