Gene banks play an important role in study and preservation of natural appearing and economically valuable plants. Long neglected as a part of agricultural practise and contributors to biodiversity medicinal and aromatic plants (MAP) gain more and more interest. As a part of Slovenian National Program of Plant Genetic Resources collections of MAP are maintained at the Institute of hop research and brewing in Žalec and at the Biotechnical faculty of University Ljubljana.

The collection garden of MAP in Žalec was established in 1976. At the moment 293 accessions are kept in the garden and about 280 in seed collection. Research of autochtone MAP and experiments of micropropagation and keeping different species of autochtone and cultivated MAP in vitro are in progress.

The MAP collection at Biotechnical faculty was founded in 1994 as an active gene bank. The collection consists of 314 accessions of 42 species of autochtone and cultivated MAP. Techniques of clonal propagation in vitro are investigated. The MEDPLANT relational database was developed to maintain the floristic, taxonomic and analytical data about MAP studied also in situ.