[ Unfortunately, the current WSU Ownbey Herbarium website has depreciated the reference links discussed in this article. You can, however, still access these valuable pages via Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine” by clicking on the backeted links below. ]
[ http://www.wsu.edu/~wsherb/ ]
“From Rainforest to Grassland,” on WSU’s Ownbey Herbarium website, takes you on a virtual tour of Washington plant communities, from Cape Flattery on the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula to the confluence of the Snake and Grand Ronde Rivers at the southeastern corner of the state. Along the way you not only learn about the state’s varied plant communities-coastal forest, temperate rainforest, salt marsh, Cascade forest, timberline & alpine, sagebrush steppe, meadow steppe, butte slope, and riparian-you also get what amounts to a private viewing of the gorgeous color photographs of Larry Hufford, herbarium director. Hufford’s photos also appear on two similar programs, “Native Plants of the Palouse” and “Delicious Pieces: The Vegetables We Eat,” as well as pages devoted to plants of Moscow Mountain, Kamiak Butte, Smoot Hill, and the Rose Creek Reserve.
Lest you think this site too regional in its focus, check the “Links” page, [ www.wsu.edu:8080/~wsherb/links.html ]. This is your springboard for online travel to Chicago’s Field Museum, the New York Botanical Garden, Britain’s Kew Gardens, the National Botanical Institute in Capetown, South Africa, and the Australian National Botanic Gardens, among other destinations. You can also access sites on flora projects and databases, plant systematics and evolution, ethnobotany, poisonous plants, bryophytes and lichens, gardening and horticulture, and botanical directories. So log on and enjoy!