We may not know who lived at a particular location 100 years ago and we may not know what animals lived there either. But you can bet that somewhere in the UW Herbarium lie specimens of the plants that lived there 100 years ago.

This is true of many sites all over the Pacific Northwest. The Herbarium houses plants collected on Mount St. Helens before it erupted, documenting a history of flora on a slope that no longer exists. Established in 1882, it is the largest herbarium in the Pacific Northwest and boasts about 600,000 specimens from various different places and times.

I spoke with David Giblin, collections manager of the Herbarium, who said that through collecting and documenting plant and fungi, we can obtain vital clues about everything from climate change to volcanic activity.

The first plants he showed me were cacti, pressed and spiky on their mounting paper. Then he showed me skunk cabbage, which was so huge that one leaf covered three pieces of paper. Just to put that in perspective, one sheet of mounting paper is exactly the size of The Daily you’re holding right now. In fact, the scientists from the herbarium always bring a copy of The Daily with them on collection trips so they can measure out their specimens.

The next thing he showed me was the smallest flowering plant in the world. It is from the genus Wolffia and looked to me like little flecks of green dust. I was astounded by how anyone could go out into the woods with a magnifying glass looking for them.

Giblin told me stories about riding on horseback for 17 miles on the Canadian border and getting snow in August. Another one was about how he pitched a tent in a particularly grassy spot in a desert in central Washington and awoke at 2 a.m. to the sprinklers that were keeping the grass green. “It was funny afterwards,” he said, laughing.

Scientists have been building the record of the flora in this region for hundreds of years. Explorers and scientists alike, they seek to document the world as it was for future generations to study. Giblin put it best, “The flora now is not what it was 100 years ago, and you can be sure it will be different 100 years from now.”

Reach columnist Chaitra Sriram at features@dailyuw.com.