THE MAKING OF AN HERBARIUM. 



93 



In the matter of how plants should be collected, there is great 

 diversity of opinion. It may be said that the methods employed 

 depend somewhat on circumstances. No one method will fit all cases. 

 The collecting box of tin is excellent for collecting plants for study in 

 the fresh state, and for collecting the lower forms of plant life, but 

 the average collector for the herbarium has little use for this except 

 as an adjunct to the collecting press. It may be used to advantage in 

 wet or windy weather, for use in which the collecting press is uniitted 

 for obvious reasons. Probably the best press for general collecting is 

 made of two stout pieces of the kind of pasteboard known as binder's 

 board, twelve 'by seventeen inches in size, between which are placed 

 fifty or more sheets of the cheapest kind of white paper, cut eleven by 

 sixteen inches, the whole being held together by two straps, with 

 buckles, which pass around it (Fig i). Instead of binder's boards, the 



FIG. 2. 



sides of the press are often made of wood or wire lattice-work, but the 

 boards are better if they can be procured. In addition to their stand- 

 ing more hard usage, the edges will bend about the plants collected, 

 keeping the moisture in, a condition greatly to be desired until the 

 drying press is reached, however much we may wish to be rid of it 

 later. The collecting press may be of any size, but the size given 

 above is the most convenient from the fact that the collecting sheets 

 are slightly smaller than the standard herbarium sheet, thus insuring 

 that all specimens collected will be of proper size for mounting. Spec- 

 imens that are so large that they can only with dilhculty be crowded 

 on the herbarium sheet, are an abomination. If one happens upon 

 plants which he wishes to preserve and has left his press behind, a few 

 old newspapers make a fairly good substitute. The plants should be 

 placed one upon another in a compact pile ^nd then wrapped about 



