Included are representative materials of all the major groups from the slime molds and true molds to the larger, fleshy mushrooms. Loans are freely available to individuals associated with recognized botanical institutions anywhere in the world. The Marion Ownbey Herbarium is an internationally recognized resource for research, teaching, and service. Located in Heald Hall, Room G-9, the herbarium houses 358,000 preserved plant specimens, primarily from the Pacific Northwest but including worldwide collections. In addition to native vascular plants and weeds, the herbarium contains mosses, liverworts, lichens, and special collections of seeds and cultivated plants.
Staff provide assistance to persons wanting to identify and learn about plants.
Facilities include a small reference library, reprint and slide collections, computers, and special botanical indices. The Henry W. Smith Soil Monolith Collection contains more than 150 preserved soil profiles, some as much as eight feet in length, representing soils from all of the geographic regions in the state of Washington and nine of the 11 soil orders in Soil Taxonomy. Soils that are particularly well represented in the collection are those of the Palouse region and those from eastern and central Washington that contain layers of volcanic ash from the many prehistoric and historic eruptions of volcanoes in the Cascade region. The collection is the work of Henry W. Smith, emeritus professor of soils at Washington State University. The soil monoliths constitute a very valuable resource for both teaching and research within the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences.