Features the National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL) within the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture based at the Colorado State University campus in Fort Collins, Colorado. Notes that the NSSL aims to preserve the base collection of the National Plant Germplasm System and to conduct research.

The Plant Seed: Development, Preservation, and Germination presents papers delivered on the symposium on plant seed, held at the University of Minnesota in 1978. The volume discusses the development, preservation, and germination of the plant seed. The topics of this compendium focus on various aspects of the plant seed. The first group of papers describes genetic, hormonal, and molecular events associated with seed development, with particular attention given to the molecular biology of storage protein formation; the second group of papers examines the physiological and genetic aspects of germplasm preservation. The final group of papers examines the molecular aspects of seed germination. The book will be of interest to botanists, biologists, plant breeders, plant physiologists, plant pathologists, and geneticists.