A number of the specimens in WSU’s mycological herbarium were collected and identified at the Pullman campus.Here’s sampling of some of the more prominent local collectors and their contributions. (Courtesy WSU Mycological Herbarium and Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections)
George W. Fischer joined the Washington State College faculty in 1934. He had an abiding interest in smut fungi, like the black powder seen here, that parasitize cereals and wild grasses.
Lori Carris, who joined WSU’s faculty in 1989, travels throughout eastern Washington and Oregon to collect samples of fungi found in field crops.
From pristine typed notes to handwritten pages like this one from 1937, the fungal herbarium’s specimen envelopes are almost as varied as the fungi they contain.
Charles Vancouver Piper, who came to Pullman in 1892, traveled the Pacific Northewst providing some of the earliest additions to the fungal herbarium collection.
Roderick Sprague, who joined WSU’s faculty in 1947, had a keen eye for fungus. If something caught his interest, he would jump out of the car and collect a sample. This mildew was collected in 1924 when Sprague was still an undergraduate student.
Jack D. Rogers, who came to WSU in 1963, now manages the mycological herbarium and looks after the specimens that he and his predecessors have collected. He identified this specimen for the collection his first semester on the job in Pullman.
This fungal rust specimen, collected near Colfax by faculty member Harry B. Humphrey in 1912, was identified and catalogued years later by Roderick Sprague (pictured).
Collectors didn’t always travel far to find specimens. Students Silvan Cohen and C.W. Boothroyd found the fungus recorded here on campus. The men shared the same major professor, Frederick Heald.
Xerpha Mae Gaines was a student and faculty wife in the 1920s and 30s who later became an herbarian technician. While most of the specimens she collected now reside in the Ownbey (Plant) Herbarium at WSU, she contributed some of her finds to the mycological herbarium.
