42 



HAUDTVICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Alpine Botany.— Mr. Howse, in the January 

 number of Science-Gossip, after giving the benefit 

 of his experience as to the best mode of drying and 

 preserving plants, asks that he may be favoured 

 with that of others ; aud though I will not presume 

 to say 1 can improve upon his plan, I will state 

 what I have found the most effective mode, after 

 having botanized in the Alps, Apennines, Pyrenees, 

 the South of Prance, Switzerland, Italy, Sicily, 

 Malta, Gibraltar, Algiers, &c, for upwards of 

 twenty years. I may here state that the preserva- 

 tion of my plants, both in freshness and colour, has 

 been such as to induce English botanists to suppose 

 that the climate of the countries where they were 

 gathered must have assisted in their preservation. 

 I quite agree with Mr. Howse that plants should be 

 well, not lightly pressed from the first; I have 

 always pressed them between boards strong enough 

 to bear the strain of stout straps, with great pres- 

 sure, the boards being sufficiently pliant to allow of 

 a very slight curve at the edges, where the bundle 

 of plants is not so thick as in the centre: I have 

 found willow boards to answer best. I place the 

 plants first in the commonest, thinnest, unglazed 

 silver or tissue-paper, the coarser the better, as 

 being more transparent, so that the plant may be 

 seen through it without being disturbed or removed, 

 till it is dried and capable of retaining its form. I 

 put three or four separate sheets of absorbing paper 

 between each plant, drying each paper separately 

 every day, for two or three days, or as long as may 

 be found necessary, keeping the whole strapped as 

 tight as possible ; at first, indeed, I put them be- 

 tween strong boards of a portable press of my own 

 invention, calculated to give the greatest pressure 

 by means of two square-thread thin iron screws, 

 IS in. long, screwed into sockets, so that the press 

 may be readily taken to pieces and go in a small 

 space for travelling. Of course a press is hardly 

 suitable for a person whose time is so limited as 

 to cause him to be constantly on the move. 

 There are many plants which should be killed before 

 they are pressed ; Orchids, for instance, will turn 

 black, both leaves and stalk, as well as the flowers, 

 unless the plant, leaves, and all but the flower-head, 

 is immersed in boiling water for two or three 

 minutes, so as effectually to kill it : the root or 

 bulb at the same time may be punctured. The flaccid 

 leaves should be then carefully laid out in their 

 natural form on the silver paper with a small thin 

 ivory paper-knife ; thus the colours may be pre- 

 served. The same process should be adopted with 

 bulbs of various plants, and the interior of the bulbs 

 may be removed, so as not to disturb the outer coat- 

 ing. Some of the Crassulacesealso, such as Sedums, 

 Sempervivums, &c, should be effectually killed in 

 like manner, otherwise they will sometimes actually 

 continue growing, even under strong pressure. 

 There are many flowers of which it is impossible to 



preserve the colour, particularly the blue colours, 

 though some blues — the Gentians for instance — will 

 keep their colour. Various modes have been 

 adopted for drying plants expeditiously, such as 

 placing them in an oven, or passing a hot flat-iron 

 over them, &c. Mr. Planchon, professor of botany 

 at Montpellier, who was for several years in the 

 Herbarium at Kew, pressed them between wire 

 frames, leaving a distance between each layer, so as 

 to allow of rapid evaporation ; but I have observed 

 that such modes of drying, though a saving of time 

 and trouble, have the effect of rendering the plants, 

 especially the leaves, brittle, so as to break on be- 

 ing disturbed. I believe the only safe mode is to 

 allow them to dry gradually, though at some cost 

 of time and trouble. I feel satisfied that if other- 

 wise dried my plants would not, after ten or twenty 

 years, look almost as fresh as when first pressed. I 

 always keep them in a dry place, entirely excluded 

 from air; after any number of years I never find any 

 insects, which a damp atmosphere with exposure to 

 air is sure to produce. Another precaution I con- 

 sider necessary, which is to wash the roots clean, as 

 they frequently contain the eggs of insects, which, 

 in their subsequent stages, even under pressure, are 

 so destructive. The specimens, when finally dried, 

 should be put upon white paper to set them off to 

 the greatest advantage. The paper I have always 

 used for dryiDg is what the chemists constantly use 

 abroad for filtering (papier a filtrer) ; it it more 

 absorbent and thicker that our blotting-paper and 

 without any glazing, quite porous. The commonest 

 tissue-paper used by the grocers in Prance for pack- 

 ing candles is the thinnest and best for putting the 

 plants in, on account of its transparency ; the 

 English tissue-paper is thicker and often slightly 

 glazed.— T. B. W., Brighton. 



Botanical Locality Record Club. — This 

 club has just issued its first report, the recorder 

 being Mr. P. Arnold Lees, P.L.S. The report 

 publishes the regulations of the club, and we are 

 able to state, for the benefit of those who are jealous 

 over the safe-keeping of our botanical rarities, that 

 every precaution is taken to protect them. The 

 doubtful species have been verified or eliminated, 

 and henceforth we shall have none of that haziness 

 respecting the local occurrence of rare species that 

 has been caused through one compiler of a flora 

 borrowing from another. A good deal of curious 

 botanical information concerning rare plants is con- 

 tained in this report, and we congratulate those who 

 founded the club on their first success. 



Synopsis or British Mosses. — The best 

 synopsis of British mosses with which we are 

 acquainted has recently been published by Mr. C. 

 P. Hobkirk, the president of the Huddersfield 

 Naturalists' Society : (London : L. Peeve & Co.). 

 The description of each species is clear, technical, 



