HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



223 



possible care occasionally justify the goodnatured 

 smile of an " outsider,"' when shown triumphantly 

 some valuable specimen by an enthusiastic botanist. 



I tried for many years all the usual ways, "drying "- 

 papers, blotting-paper, etc., and changing the papers 

 each day, till I once found a flower accidentally left in a 

 book, and beautifully dried — a small blue campanula, 

 one of the most difficult colours to preserve, and took 

 the hint. I keep a library of old yellow novels, 

 pamphlets, directories, etc., and dry all my smaller 

 specimens in them, not putting more than five or six 

 in each, and I find that they are compressed enough 

 by tightening the books with elastic bands, three put 

 on lengthwise, and four or five across the book, as 

 tight as they can be put on. Then I place my books 

 where there is a good draught (if possible on a 

 sunny window-sill), putting under each end of the 

 book a little prop so that the air circulates fieely 

 round it, and I never open my book for a week, by 

 which time the specimens are generally perfectly dry, 

 and the colour wonderfully well preserved. Finger- 

 ing the half-dried plants invariably spoils the colours, 

 turning some almost black. In this way the plants 

 dry much more quickly than in the usual plan of putting 

 them in the soft drying-paper, which keeps moist. 



The orchidaceous and other succulent plants are 

 the most perplexing and difficult to deal with, but I 

 have to some extent succeeded with them by the 

 following plan. I cut the specimens across, and dry 

 each part separately. In the stalk of the upper part, 

 from the blossom down, I make a slight slit and 

 placing a bit of blotting-paper on it press out the 

 moisture with a small paper-knife ; amongst the 

 blossoms of the spike I put sundry small bits of white 

 writing-paper, and shut up my book tightly, with 

 not more than three orchids in it. The small bits of 

 paper prevent the blossoms sticking together, and 

 drying in a shapeless mass, and also keep the colour 

 better. The other parts are easily dried by slitting 

 the stalks as above mentioned ; and the leaves also, by 

 this method, do not become so black as is usual with 

 orchids in drying, sometimes I have managed to keep 

 them quite green. 



I never dry large specimens of any sort without 

 dividing them ; it is easy to put the parts together 

 again. The top of the plant, with its bunch of heavy 

 buds and blossoms, effectually prevents the delicate 

 leaves drying successfully. 



Roses present a great difficulty, and such flowers 

 as o.K-eye daisies, etc. The rose I place on its face 

 and use a number of "compresses" the size of the 

 blossom, and each with a hole cut in the centre 

 large enough to let the back through, till the compress 

 is on a level with the top ; the same with the ox-eye, 

 only of course reversing the position of the blossom ; 

 such-like flowers are comparatively easy to settle, 

 and one is amply rewarded by the outside florets 

 remaining their full size, instead of being crumpled up 

 to less than a quarter their length. I must add that 



I dry my books most carefully after taking the 

 specimens out of them. 



Very large specimens I dry in piles of newspapers 

 (a newspaper doubled in four is generally large 

 enough for mine), with a stout pasteboard of the same 

 size under and over, and the elastic bands tightly 

 bound over all, and with plenty of sun and air it is 

 most successful. 



Perhaps all this sounds very troublesome, but it 

 takes less time than changing the papers each day 

 according to the old system, and will be found far 

 better and satisfactory if properly carried out. 



T, Grierson. 



NOTES ON THE FLORA OF BRAUNTON 

 BURROWS, NORTH DEVON. 



WHILST on a visit to North Devonshire during 

 the early part of August, I had an oppor- 

 tunity of spending a few hours on the botanically 

 well-known Braunton Burrows, which I have seen 

 described as a "sandy paradise of botanists," and 

 perhaps my fellow-readers of SciENCE-GossiP would 

 be interested to know what plants I noticed there. 

 The "burrows" consist of a tract of sand-dunes, 

 forming a large portion of the delta of the rivers Taw 

 and Torridge, extending probably five or six miles 

 along the sea coast. For about a quarter of a mile 

 inland from high-water mark the sand-hills are very 

 sterile, their position being constantly altered by the 

 action of the wind, the only vegetation that has been 

 able to gain a footing being some tufts of very coarse 

 grass, with a specimen here and there of prickly salt- 

 wort [Salsola kali), three or four species of spurge, 

 including the sea spurge {^EitpJiorbia paralia) and the 

 Portland spurge {E. Portlandica), henbane (Hyoscya- 

 inus niger) and the hound's-tongue {^Cynoglossum 

 officinale). But a little further inland the flora is 

 exceedingly luxuriant, for miles the Burrows are 

 covered with some of the most beautiful and interest- 

 ing of our native plants, including a number of species 

 that are rare, and several peculiar to this particular 

 district. Perhaps the most striking plant here is the 

 viper's bugloss {Echium vulgare) ; many parts of the 

 Burrows are literally gay with its intensely blue 

 flowers, its relative the small bugloss {Lycopus 

 arvensis) being also common. The rare sharp-fruited 

 rush {yuncus acutiis) forms here and there dense rigid 

 patches, the stems are about four feet high, ending 

 in exceedingly strong sharp points, the fruits are 

 larger and harder than our other species of J uncus. 

 Amongst the ranker kinds of vegetation I noticed 

 the Gromwell {Lithospermzun officinale), which had 

 almost done flowering, but could easily be identified 

 by its intensely hard white shining fruits, flea-bane 

 {Inula dyscnterica), sea-holly {Eyytigiurn T)iaritimum), 

 which, strange to say, seems rare in this district, wild 

 celery [Apitim gi'aveolens) and dyer's-weed {Reseda 

 liiieola). 



