Preservation of Botanical Specimens, 315 



Sir J. E. Smith speaks also of the effect of the sublimate in 

 preserving the colours and fresh appearance of the plants ; 

 my late examination has afforded me strong proof of this 

 also. Being aware that many specimens had been put away 

 amongst the duplicates, which ought to have been in the 

 herbarium, I took the opportunity, while going through the 

 latter, of turning over the former also; they had been kept in 

 the same room, but it was most striking to compare the fresh- 

 ness of the washed plants with the faded colourless appear- 

 ance of the others gathered at the same time. In the case of 

 specimens received from other collections, and which may 

 have been dried some years, a great improvement in their 

 appearance is produced by the mere act of washing. 



As to the expense and trouble, they would, no doubt, be 

 an object to any one undertaking to wash a large herbarium 

 already formed, but would scarcely be felt by a person who 

 adopted the plan before his shelves were well filled. Here 

 the solution, made with the best spirits of wine, costs about 

 thirteen pence a quart, which, on an average, will wash from 

 700 to 800 individuals. This I state from experience, as in- 

 dependently of the regular trifling accessions, I received some 

 time since, about 4000 specimens, including many of my 

 largest ones, with several banksias and other plants, whose 

 heads absorb rather more than their due share of solutions, 

 as did also many of the woolly plants of Greece and Asia 

 Minor. I have since had more than 2000 at one time ; and 

 in neither case was the consumption greater than I have 

 stated ; but much, both of economy and efficacy, depends on 

 the system adopted. My only object has been to enable my 

 brother botanists to judge on a disputed point, without any 

 wish to establish a character for the solution to which it is 

 not entitled ; and I should be most happy to abandon the use 

 of it in favour of any other plan which would afford the same 

 security, with less expense and trouble ; but I have had two 

 decided proofs of the utter uselessness of camphor, and I sus- 

 pect that Dr. Lindley has a more efficacious protection which 

 he has said nothing about. It is, that his herbarium does 

 not lie idle ; for after all, I believe that the one which is the 

 most used will be the least gnawed. 



Eichenbukl, near Than, May 8. 1837. 



