Western Australian Herbarium

The Western Australian Herbarium is the State Herbarium in Perth, Western Australia. It is part of the State government's Department of Parks and Wildlife, and has responsibility for the description and documentation of the flora of Western Australia.

The Herbarium is linked to the Regional Herbaria Network - which links approximately 84 regional community groups which have local reference collections.

In 2000, with the Wildflower Society of Western Australia and the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority it published The Western Australian Flora - A Descriptive Catalogue.

The Herbarium was formed as the amalgamation of three separate government department herbaria: those of the Western Australian Museum, the Department of Agriculture, and the "forest herbarium" maintained by the Conservator of Forests. The first of these was formed by Bernard Henry Woodward, Director of the Museum and Art Gallery, probably around 1895; the second was probably formed with the appointment of Alexander Morrison as botanist to the Department of Agriculture in 1897. In 1906 the Department of Agriculture handed its herbarium over to the Museum, but reclaimed it in 1911. The "forest herbarium" commenced in 1916. Around 1928, the Government took the decision to amalgamate the three into a single State Herbarium, to be managed by the Department of Agriculture. The "forest herbarium" was handed over more or less immediately, but the Museum was opposed to the merger, and did not finally hand over its specimens until around 1959. In 1988 departmental responsibility was shifted from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Conservation and Land Management (now the Department of Parks and Wildlife).

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