Burke Museum Herbarium, University of Washington

The University of Washington Herbarium (WTU) is part of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. With over 600,000 specimens currently in the collections and between 5,000-10,000 specimens added annually, WTU is among the largest herbaria in the region.

The herbarium maintains a regional focus on the Pacific Northwest, covering Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon Territory. Other significant collections come from California, the rest of Western North America, and the Pacific Rim. Our oldest specimens date to the mid 1800's.

WTU's vascular plant type collections contain about 1,200 specimens, and include much type material from such early Pacific Northwestern collectors as Abrams, Aven Nelson, Blankinship, Cusick, Elmer, Flett, Heller, Howell, Leiberg, Macbride, Piper, Sandberg, and Suksdorf, as well as more recent collectors such as Clokey, Constance, Cronquist, Detling, English, Eyerdam, Hitchcock, Holmgren, Maguire, Ownbey, Peck, Reveal, St. John, Thompson, and Zika.

Approximately 86% of the vascular types come from the USA, 3% from Mexico, and 2.5% from Canada. 26% come from Washington, 20% from California, 10% from Oregon, and 8% from Idaho. 5% of our types are holotypes, and 68% are isotypes.

Materials contributed by Burke Museum Herbarium, University of Washington (WTU):

• Specimens