Donald B. Zobel was a faculty member in the Oregon State University Department of Botany and Plant Pathology from 1968 until his retirement in 2003. Zobel's research area was forest ecology; he worked on projects concerning the water relations of trees in the Himalayas and in North America and the recovery of plants buried by volcanic debris at Mount St. Helens. The Oregon Flora Project began in 1994 as a project to compile and provide information about Oregon's vascular plans to a general audience and botanical specialists. The Oregon Plant Atlas is an interactive mapping project that displays plant distributions.
