HARD IVICKE'S S CIENCE- G SSI P. 



I5 1 



deferred ; as postponing it probably means spoiling 

 the specimens and losing the labels, and certainly 

 means an accumulation of work at some future time. 

 For fixing the plants, some recommend the application 

 of hot glue ; but this is very troublesome to manage, 

 and as the operation of carefully gluing a large 

 specimen is rather a long one, the glue is not likely 

 to be very hot when the time comes for fastening it 

 down. Strong gum answers quite as well and is 

 more convenient. To make the gum, take one ounce 

 of picked gum . arabic, as colourless as possible, 

 powder it, and stir it with a clean stick or a glass 

 rod in an ounce and a half of cold water until it is 

 dissolved ; add a quarter of an ounce of powdered 

 gum tragacanth ("gum dragon"); and lastly, add 

 two grains of corrosive sublimate previously dissolved, 

 along with two grains of sal-ammoniac, in one drachm 

 of water. A metal stirring-rod should not be used, 

 as it is apt to discolour the liquid. The latter, if 

 carefully made, is quite colourless, and does not show 

 much, if any be accidentally smeared. (N.B. — Corro- 

 sive sublimate is very poisonous, and the bottle of 

 gum containing it should be labelled " Poison.") 



To mount the specimens, lay them on a sheet of 

 brown paper or newspaper, gum them carefully all 

 over the back, and then lay them gently on the white 

 sheet in the best position, which you should have 

 previously decided on, and press them down with a 

 clean handkerchief. Use no more gum than is abso- 

 lutely necessary, and wipe away any excess at once. 

 A good plan with a very large or weak plant is to 

 gum the back of the stem, fix it by a gentle pressure, 

 and then turn up the leaves and flowers one by one, 

 gum them, and then lay them back again in position. 

 Another method, which I remember trying once with 

 a long trailing pimpernel, and which succeeded well, 

 was to gum it on the back as before ; shift it, still 

 face downwards, to a sheet of brown paper the same 

 size as that on which I was going to mount it, arrange 

 it as I desired, and lastly turn the white sheet down 

 over it. On lifting it up, it of course brought the 

 specimen away with it. The delicate blossoms which 

 have been separately dried should next be placed in 

 their natural position, care being taken to hide any 

 awkward appearance of a join in the stem. Long 

 plants, too long to lie on one sheet, should be cut in 

 two pieces and these laid side by side ; and if the 

 stem be very long and a piece of it be permanently 

 removed, the cut ends should not be brought close 

 together, but it should plainly appear that a piece of 

 the stem is absent. All parts of the plant should be 

 shown as far as they can, and on the same sheet. For 

 instance, somewhere on the dandelion sheet should be 

 shown the globular downy seed-head, and with the 

 strawberry plant the strawberry fruit itself, which 

 latter, notwithstanding its succulent nature, may be 

 easily dried, if not too ripe to begin with. These 

 should not be made to appear as if growing from the 

 same plant as in flower unless they were actually 



found so growing. In fact, in mounting such parts, 

 nature must be imitated, not contradicted. A few 

 slips of well-gummed paper of the same kind as that 

 you are mounting upon should be kept at hand, with 

 which to fix down stiff stems, which often have a 

 tendency to part company with their sheets. 



Labelling should be done immediately after mount- 

 ing. To keep the names, localities, and dates of the 

 plants while pressing, the particulars may be written 

 on small scraps of paper, which must be transferred 

 each time with the respective specimens whenever the 

 sheets are changed. I have found this plan answer 

 best in practice, as if the entries are made in a note- 

 book there is a danger of afterwards mistaking one 

 plant for another. But however these facts are pre- 

 served, as soon as a specimen is fairly mounted they 

 should be transferred to the right-hand bottom corner 

 of the permanent sheet. They may be written thus : 



Rhinanthus Crista-galli, 



(Yellow-rattle), 



Hayfields, near Freshford, 



10. 6. 78. 



(Collector's name. ) 

 Or printed labels may be obtained with spaces to be 

 filled up. After mounting and labelling, the sheets 

 should be again pressed flat for a day or two. 



But the young botanist who does not wish to have 

 a good deal of trouble thrown away, and to see his 

 well-dried specimens devoured by insects, has more 

 work before him yet. Mould is not likely to trouble 

 him with plants which have once been made com- 

 pletely dry. A botanical friend, to whom I am 

 indebted for several of these hints, writes : "At one 

 time, in the very wet summer of 1875, and when I 

 had my press so full that scarcely more than two 

 sheets were between plant and plant, I found, to my 

 disgust, many of them moulding. But I took heart 

 and brushed off the mould with a moderately stiff 

 brush continually till they were thoroughly dry, and 

 then stacked them away between thin dry sheets, 

 and did not look at them again till nine months 

 afterwards, when I found them without a particle 

 of mould. Later on, I cured some of the mould by 

 brushing it off and washing the plants with corrosive 

 sublimate, while they were still in the press. But, 

 by pressing few at a time, or by using more paper, 

 I might, of course, have escaped that ; and it does 

 not do to trust to being able to get rid of the mould 

 s o, for it discolours the specimens." But all plants 

 are more or less liable to the attacks of insects, and 

 some, as the Hanunculacea, Critcifenr, and Umbcllifenr, 

 especially so. The best preventive is corrosive sub- 

 limate. The Rev. Gerard Smith recommends dipping 

 Raiiiuiculaccic (Buttercups) and Cruciftra: (Shepherd's 

 Purse, Cuckoo-flower, &c.) before pressing, into a 

 saturated solution of corrosive sublimate in equal 

 parts of rain-water and methylated spirits. A more 

 convenient plan is to paint the specimens with the 

 liquid after they are mounted. For this purpose 



