Chias and gum tragacanth are examples of potential new crops for the diversification of U.S. agriculture. The chias are generally unknown to North American agriculturists, but are well known in Mexico as edible cereals and sources of oil. Gum tragacanth of the large genus Astragalus, is widely known in commerce from the Near East, but has not previously been cultivated anywhere, so far as we know The products of these two plant groups have been esteemed by gourmets, but we treat them here as two rich sources of germplasm with unknown breeding potentials. They appear to be worthy of serious cultural investigations and we are slowly increasing seed, which will be available to other researchers from the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System.