Western Australian Herbarium

It houses a collection of more than 845,000 dried specimens of plants, algae, bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts), lichens, fungi and slime moulds gathered from 1770 to today throughout Western Australia and from across the globe.

[7] Charles Austin Gardner, who served as government botanist and curator of the state herbarium, played a crucial role in organising the collection.

He annotated J.C. Willis' "A Dictionary of the Flowering Plants and Ferns" (4th edition, 1919) with his numbering system, as it provided a more portable reference than Engler's multi-volume works.

The building featured two windowless, air-conditioned vaults with fire detection and carbon dioxide fire-fighting systems, as well as the ability to be sealed for fumigation.

In 2019, the herbarium catalogued its 800,000th specimen, a Stenanthera pungens collected from Chinocup Nature Reserve about 180 kilometres (110 mi) northwest of Albany.

[10] The Western Australian Herbarium's research collections are housed at the Keiran McNamara Conservation Science Centre in Kensington, where they are maintained in four main vaults plus two specialised storage areas.

Non-vascular plants, including algae, fungi, lichens, mosses, liverworts, and hornworts, are arranged alphabetically by genus due to ongoing taxonomic revisions.

This secure storage area is designed with an oxygen-displacement system that would remove oxygen from the room in the event of a fire to protect the collection.

The herbarium has initiated a comprehensive digitisation project, using a high-resolution camera system to create digital images of all collection items for online access.

In 2018, the herbarium implemented the APG IV phylogenetic arrangement of families, which is expected to remain relatively stable due to its basis in wide-ranging evidence and repeatable analysis methods.

[8] The herbarium has adopted a 'punctuated equilibrium model' for future arrangements, whereby systematic changes are implemented based on widely accepted collaborative taxonomic syntheses rather than individual research publications.

Non-vascular plants, including algae, fungi, lichens, mosses, liverworts, and hornworts, maintain an alphabetical arrangement by genus due to ongoing taxonomic flux.