We are a team of plant and fungal biologists who curate and care for the collections at OSC. Dr. Jessie Uehling curates the fungal collection with support from Mycology Collection Research Assistant Kyle Gervers, Dr. James Mickley curates the plant collection with assistance from Plant Collection Research Assistant Julia Metzler. The OSC herbarium is directed by Dr. Aaron Liston.
Our herbarium houses over 550,000 specimens, and about half of these are fungi including lichens, Basdidiomycota mushrooms and allies, Ascomycota cups and allies, Oomycota, plasmodial slime molds, and select Mucoromycota and Zoopagomycota lineages. The collection is arranged by phylum level taxonomy, and then alphabetically by genera and species. We are constantly working to reflect modern fungal taxonomic concepts in our collection, and to have the OSC collection represent fungal diversity in the Pacific NorthWest particularly in Oregon.
History of the Herbarium
Records in our herbaria date back to 1890, before what is currently known as Oregon State University existed. The university was founded as the Corvallis Academy in 1856, became Corvallis College in 1858, and was designated as Oregon’s land-grant institution under the provisions of the Morrill Act of 1862. The act granted OSU extensive land to create and support an agricultural college endowment. Corvallis college became Oregon State Agricultural College (OSAC) in 1927, and Oregon State College (OSC) in 1937 and finally Oregon State University in 1961.
Dr. Jessie Uehling has been the curator since 2019, joining a lineage of mycological curators including Drs. Joey Spatafora, and Helen Gilkey. Projects Dr. Uehling has overseen include bolstering herbarium infrastructure such as specimen boxes, labels, and taxonomic modernization. She has also worked to automate digital data deposition, packet creation and the implementation of barcodes for specimen tracking.
Oregon Mycoflora Project
Recent projects (since 2019) include the creation and efforts of the Oregon Mycoflora project which aims to produce an accurate census of the macrofungal species (e.g., mushrooms, polypores, truffles, cup fungi, etc.) that exist in the state of Oregon. We are a group of mycologists who have a shared goal to coordinate professional and amateur mycologists to document, describe, and disseminate knowledge about our Oregonian fungi. Our project is a regional contributor to the North American Mycoflora Project, and involves mycologists from Oregon State University, University of Oregon, Lane Community College, Cascade Mycological Society, Oregon Mycological Society and the North American Truffle Society. We invite you to Get involved on iNaturalist!!iNaturalist is a free, powerful platform accessible by your smart phone or computer that allows you to record your fungal observations. The software enables image based identifications that can then be examined by an online community naturalists, researchers and experts who will help crowdsource consensus IDs. To get started, download the iNaturalist app to your smart phone, create and account and join our project, called “Oregon Mycoflora Project” You can learn more about the project and team at http://oregonmycoflora.org/.
To initiate inter-herbaria loans
Contact me for fungi and Dr. Aaron Liston for plant collections, and see OSU herbarium contacts page. For more information about Native Oregonian plants see the Oregon Flora Project, the OSU (plant) type collection. For more on Oregon Fungi, check out Oregon Mycoflora
Specimen submissions to osc
We welcome your collections and will evaluate specimens using our incoming specimen criteria rubric. All incoming specimens must have barcoded, packeted, and well preserved specimens with identification and digital collection metadata. Please email me if you would like to discuss submitting your collection for accessioning at OSC.
creating and submitting lichen and bryophyte packets
Creating and submitting macro fungal specimens
- Obtain the companion meta data and packet template files referenced below from me by email.
- open and use the <Collection metadata.csv> file (above, ) in excel to record your collection information. Please consult the data entry guide above before recording your information.
- open the <Collection packet for printing.docx> file (above).
- once formatted, print each label, and fold on lines around your collection.
- submit your specimens by emailing Dr. Jessie Uehling Jessie.uehling<at>OregonState<dot>edu to arrange shipping or drop off.
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