BOTANICAL COLLECTIONS 99 



these forms are, he will know from his own earlier 

 studies. 



Next in value to living plants come dead ones pre- 

 served to look as much like life as possible. The 

 collection and arrangement of such specimens is the 

 function of museums. Unhappily, there is no known 

 method of preserving plants in their natural forms and 

 colors as is possible with so many animals ; though on 

 the other hand it is possible to preserve plants, when 

 dried, with cheapness, compactness, and accessibility far 

 exceeding what is possible with animals. Hence it 

 comes about that there are many great herbaria and but 

 few great botanical museums. Even in Europe botani- 

 cal museums are very scarce and of minor interest, and 

 in America there is as yet but a single botanical museum 

 of any account, that of Harvard University, and this 

 one owes its interest chiefly to the success with which 

 the living plants, including flowers, have been imitated 

 by glass models of the most natural form, size, and 

 color. 1 In time the New York Botanical Garden will 

 undoubtedly possess a museum of the greatest com- 

 prehensiveness and value. Most colleges with depart- 



1 This collection of models is being made by Leopold and Rudolph 

 Blaschka, of Dresden, Germany. It has attracted wide attention for its 

 great accuracy of execution. A full account of it is given by Walter Deane, 

 in the Botanical Gazette, XIX, p. 144. One of the curators of the British 

 Museum has said of it, " No other museum possesses anything half so 

 beautiful." It is unique, and by contract with the makers no part is to be 

 duplicated. 



