At the Misin Biológica de Galicia (CSIC) in Pontevedra (northwestern Spain) a program of germplasm prospection of the species Pisum sativum (pea) was started in 1987. More than 200 accessions are now maintained in the collection, including those supplied by other institutions. Documentation of this collection for breeding purposes is based on agronomic and seed quality traits measured in different environments. In analysis of variance among populations from the collection significant differences were found for most of the quantitative traits measured. These results and knowledge of simple correlations between these quantitative traits are the basis for determining which characters are appropriate for characterizing the germplasm collections of pea.