The United States Congress authorized the establishment of a National Genetic Resources Program (NGRP). This program is within the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (USDA/ARS). It is the NGRP's responsibility to acquire, characterize, preserve, document, and distribute to scientists germplasm of all lifeforms important for food and agricultural production, including plants, animals, microbes and invertebrates. Information on this germplasm is provided to public and private users via the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) web server.

The largest component of the NGRP is the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS), a cooperative effort by public (state and federal) and private organizations to preserve the genetic diversity of plants. Data on NPGS accessions of plant genetic resources are available through GRIN.

GRIN TAXONOMY for PLANTS provides the organization for NPGS accessions and includes information on scientific names, common names, classification, distribution, references, and economic impacts for these and numerous other plants of actual or potential importance to agriculture. GRIN TAXONOMY for PLANTS is maintained by botanists of the National Germplasm Resources Laboratory (NGRL). The placement of NGRL within the USDA hierarchy can be seen here.