The germplasm bank of Pisa is a scientific facility committed to the conservation of wild plant species and to conservation-related research programs. Stored collections include seeds of endangered species, endemic species, relic populations and habitat-specialist plants. The seed bank also conserves crop wild relatives that may be considered model plants in studies of ecology and physiology of seed desiccation tolerance, and a small collection of pollen grains. Its main goal is the conservation of rare, threatened, endemic or phytogeographically relevant plant taxa in Tuscany and more generally in the Mediterranean, including southern European mountain systems.