34 Mr. J. J. Murcott on drying Plants for the Herbarium. 



pieces of flannel ; of course the same surface of the cotton or flannel 

 should always be applied to the paper, to prevent communication oi 

 the salt to the plants. I have prepared some sheets of paper on one 

 side only, but have not yet given them a trial. The pads do not 

 much affect the quick drying, but they preserve soft parts from in- 

 jury, and render a very slight pressure sufficient. When I wish to 

 preserve the corolla of a plant in the best possible manner, I place 

 under and above it a little finely opened cotton wool. When very 

 watery plants are to be dried, such as Hottonia palustris, I would 

 place an extra cushion of cotton wool over them. Plants seem to dry 

 best at a temperature of about 100° F. When the papers have taken 

 up as much moisture as they can absorb, they may be re-dried before 

 a fire, if the method suggested by a friend (drying at a baker's oven) 

 should not be accessible. Orchidacece and Scrophulariacea are bad 

 driers even with the aid of chloride of calcium ; but I find that Listera 

 ovata, and probably some others, may have their colour perfectly 

 preserved if immersed for a few seconds in a nearly boiling but very 

 weak solution of carbonate of soda, then wiped and placed between 

 the papers. This remark may perhaps induce some one with more 

 leisure than myself to experiment on various ways of drying plants 

 of these natural orders. 



The disadvantages of the method are in my opinion inconsider- 

 able when compared with the saving of time and trouble, and the 

 much better preservation of the specimens. Brown paper is not ex- 

 pensive. Crystals of chloride of calcium may be bought of the Li- 

 verpool Apothecaries' Company, and perhaps elsewhere, at 5d. per 

 lb. ; or if prepared at home, the expense will be about the same. 

 The cotton- wool cushions cost Id. or \^d. each ; flannel is more du- 

 rable, but more expensive. The cushions render the apparatus bulky, 

 but this is only an inconvenience in travelling, and then the far 

 greater inconvenience of drying papers at inns in the summer months 

 is experienced about once in three weeks instead of once a day, or 

 every other day. Such at least is the result of my experience ; I 

 have employed the salt in the manner described for two years and 

 part of a third, for I commenced with it in 1840. The great dryness 

 and consequent brittleness of the plants unfit them for the immediate 

 examination of concealed parts, but exposure to a moist air for a 

 short time would diminish their fragility in a sufficient degree. 



Suppose some plants dried, whose colours are lost in the usual 

 mode of drying, for instance the Campanulas : will they keep their 

 colours after removal from the drying papers, and exposure con- 

 tinually to a moister air? I can scarcely answer the question, for my 

 herbarium is kept artificially dry by means of the salt employed to 

 dry the plants in the first instance. Some specimens, however, com- 

 municated to a friend four months after drying, lost their colour in 

 his possession, while nearly twelve months later, specimens of the 

 same plant, brought from the same place, at the same time, and dried 

 in the same manner, were unaltered. The latter were in my her- 

 barium, and the air within was much drier than the air outside. The 

 best method I have thought of to keep a cabinet artificially dry, is by 



