IntroductionThere is still no universally accepted definition of a home-garden (also spelled as home garden). Karyono (1990)de-scribed it as a clearly bounded piece of land cultivated with adiverse mixture of annual and perennial crops, and on which ahouse is built. Kumar and Nair ( 2004) described it as intimate,multi-storycombinationsofvar ioustreesandcrops,sometimesin association with domestic animals, around homesteads.Homegarden is also a system for the production of subsistencecrops and, to an extent, income for the gardener and his family(Soemarwoto 1987). Differences in species composition inhome gardens with respect to economic status, culture andtradition, and religion have been reported in literatures.Simoons(1965) reported differences incultivatedplant speciescomposition between Muslim and Christian homegardens indistricts of southern Ethiopia. Poor people tend to grow morestaplecrops,vegetablesandfruittrees,whereaswell-offpeoplegrow more ornamentals and high-economic-value cash crops(Ahmad et al. 1980). Therefore, diversity of introduced orna-mental plant species of homegardens can be used as an indica-tor to monitor socio-economic phenomena such asmodernization as the former is a reflection of socio-economicconditions and culture of the owners. Homegardens as sites forin-situ conservation of species and varieties of plants havealso been discussed. Homegardens are conceived as asustainable production system and therefore able to sup-port and conserve biodiversity. According to Eyzaguirreand Watson (2002) homegardens are microenvironmentscontaining high levels of species and genetic diversitywithin larger farming systems.OrangAsliisaminorityethnicgroupinPeninsularMalay-sia. Most of them still live in suburban and rural villages anddepend largely on forest products for their livelihood. Thereare already some reports on the home gardens of the OrangAsli. These include the work by Milow et al. (2010)onhomegardens in several villages in the state of Pahang andOng et al. (2011a, b) on Orang Asli villages in the state ofNegeri Sembilan. More detailed and comprehensive studieson homegardens of these people are urgently needed in orderfor the information to be used to monitor impact of modern-ization on their culture and livelihood and the role of theOrang Asli in the conservation of plant species. The aim ofthispaperistodescribediversityofplantstendedorcultivatedin homegardens of ten Orang Asli villages in the state ofNegeri Sembilan. Relevance of the Orang Asli homegardensto the conservation of native plants is also discussed.Background of Study SitesInNegeriSembilan,themajorityoftheOrangAslibelongstothe subgroups Semelai and Temuan. Although the subgroupsare becoming less distinct from each other because of theinfluence of modernisation, they can be readily distinguishedlinguistically. The Semelais and Temuans, along with theJakuns who lived in the more southern part of PeninsularMalaysia, are Proto-Malays. Proto-Malays are very settledpeoples, engaged mainly in permanent agriculture or riverineandcoastalfishing.Manyofthemarealsointhewagemarketas well as in entrepreneurial and professional occupations(Nicholas 2000). Recent information obtained from Depart-ment of Orang Asli Affair shows that there are a total of 80Orang Asli villages in Negeri Sembilan in 2008. 10 OrangAsli villages in Negeri Sembilan were randomly selected forthis study. Some characteristics of each village, based on