Oregon State University Mycological Collection

Drawing of Urnula craterium by William C. Denison © 1995

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Historical Sketches Oregon State University has a rich history of mycology and lichenology which is reflected in the holdings of the Mycological Collection. Below are brief biographical sketches of some major collectors whose collections and research figure prominently in the history of mycological and lichenological research in North America and especially the Pacific Northwest. To learn more choose from the list below. Helen Gilkey S.M. Zeller Frank P. Sipe William Denison James Trappe Nancy Smith Weber Bruce McCune --Helen Gilkey (1886-1972)-- Helen Gilkey was the first modern curator of the OSC. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Oregon State and completed her dissertation, A Revision of the Tuberales (truffle fungi) of California , with W.A. Setchell at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1918 she returned to Oregon State to assume the curatorship of the University's herbarium and later became a professor of Botany. She remained curator of OSC until 1951 and was active in research until her death in 1972. Helen Gilkey epitomized the Pacific Northwestern botanist of the first half of the Twentieth Century. Her pioneering work with the Tuberales and other hypogeous fungi is some of the more classic mycological research in North America. She played an essential role in establishing Oregon State University as the center for taxonomic and systematic research of hypogeous fungi. Her collection is still actively used and serves as the foundation for systematic research of hypogeous fungi in North America. --S.M. Zeller (1884-1948)-- S.M. Zeller came to Oregon State in 1919 as an assistant pathologist and remained at OSU until his death. At that time he was a professor of plant pathology. Although his official research duties did not include basic mycology, his long list of publications in fungal taxonomy testifies to his commitment to collection-based mycological research. He was an accomplished author and researcher of many groups of fungi but is probably best known for his ground breaking work in gasteromycetes. His numerous sole author and joint publications with C.W. Dodge on gasteromycetes are seminal papers in mycology. Zeller and Gilkey were contemporaries at OSU and their shared research interests in sequestrate (hypogeous and secotioid) fungi provide OSU and the Mycological Collection with a rich research legacy on these fungi that continues today. --Frank P. Sipe (1887-1975)-- Frank Sipe's collection of lichens represents one of the earliest and more important lichen collections of the Pacific Northwest. He collected extensively in the Willamette Valley and surrounding foothills in the middle of this century. Sipe was an avid correspondent with the leading lichenologists of the time, hence quite a few of his specimens were the basis for descriptions of new species. His collection at OSC comprises approximately 2000 specimens and includes 26 type specimens, mostly described by H. A. Magnusson and V. Gyelnik. With its geographic concentration in western Oregon, Sipe's collection represents the foundation of the strong regional OSC lichen collection which has been built upon and greatly expanded by Pike, Denison and McCune. --William C. Denison-- Bill Denison, professor emeritus, is a mycologist in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology and curator of the Mycological Collection from 1966-1994. His formal education includes an AM from Oberlin College in botany and a PhD in mycology from Cornell University. During his tenure as curator at OSC, the collection grew from approximately 20,000 specimen to over 55,000. His personal specimen contribution to OSC numbers over 5,000. The majority of the specimens are from the Pezizales (approximately 3,000) with an geographic emphasis in western and eastern North America and Central America. Other significant contributions from Denison include over 1000 ascomycetous lichen specimens from western Oregon, northern California, the Canary Islands and approximately 1000 non-lichenized Ascomycetes from western Oregon. Denison's collection includes vouchers from early studies he initiated on canopy fungi and lichens with important contributions from Carroll, Sherwood-Pike, Sillett and McCune. He is also responsible for the lichen vouchers documenting the baseline air quality from sites in western Oregon and Washington and the Redwood National Park. --Jim Trappe-- Research Interests: Taxonomy of hypogeous fungi; floristics of alpine fungi; mycorrhizal ecology and applications; fungal-animal interactions. Current Programs: Mycorrhizal ecology of subalpine and alpine ecosystems; mammal-truffle interactions; population ecology and functions of nonspecific biotrophic root endophytes; taxonomy of hypogeous fungi. --Nancy Smith Weber-- Dr. Weber has added about 1,390 collections to her personal log from recent research projects, and an estimated 300 collections have been contributed to her projects from various other workers. These collections are to be added to the Mycological Collection of OSC making it the repository for the largest collection of western Pezizales (morels, truffles, and allied cup-fungi) in the nation. These collections have been used in a variety of ways. As part of the process of developing assessments of relative rarity of these fungi in the Interior Columbia River Basin, label data on these and other collections were analyzed. The OSC holdings were also surveyed as part of the effort to gather information on Forest Ecosystem Management Team (FEMAT) Strategy One fungi listed in the Record of Decision for the listed epigeous Pezizales and Leotiales. --Bruce McCune-- Bruce McCune is an associate professor in the department of Botany and Plant Pathology. As of 1996 his personal collections include over 17,000 lichenized fungi. These were collected in the period 1977 to the present. Several thousand of these have been transferred to the OSC mycological collection. The remainder are housed primarily in McCune's lab as a personal research collection. All of these are available for loan. Many of them will be gradually phased into OSC. McCune's collections are mainly from the northern Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest, but also include the Midwest and southeastern U.S. His collections span all groups of lichenized fungi, including crustose lichens. Return to the beginning of this document

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