THE MAKING OF AN HERBARIUM. ii 



j> 



sliding- motion scoop the rest into a neat pile with one move — a great 

 saving in both time and labor. If these driers are used while still 

 warm from the sun, the process of drying is greatly facilitated. 



The pressure to be put upon a pile of drying plants depends in a 

 great measure upon the plants themselves. It may vary from fifteen 

 to seventy-five pounds, forty pounds being a fair average. In fleshy 

 plants too great a weight may crush the parts out of all resemblance 

 to the original form, but, as a rule, plants seem to get too little pres- 

 sure rather than too much. The means of applying pressure to the 

 pile of drying plants are various. Thumb-screws, occasionally used, 

 cannot be recommended, since they do not permit the pressure to be 

 gauged nor allow it to follow the plants as they shrink in drying. 

 Two stout straps are often used to give pressure, as in the collecting- 

 press, especially if the collector is moving from one place to another 

 every few days, in which case the straps have the added advantage of 

 keeping the plants together during transportation ; but this method is 

 open to the same objections as the thumb-screws. For pressing plants 

 at home, a series of weights placed on top of the drying pile is best. 

 These weights may consist of stones, stout sacks of sand, or any 

 other thing that includes much weight in little space. There 

 are certain plants, of which the common live-forever is a good 

 example, that cannot be dried by ordinary means. Placed in a 

 pile of driers well weighed down they continue to grow. Good spec- 

 imens of such plants can be made by placing each plant under a drier 

 and vigorously ironing it with a warm flat-iron until the plants are 

 nearly dry, when they may be treated in the ordinary way. Flowers 

 with thick heads, like the sunflowers, are sometimes pressed by being 

 surrounded by cotton batting or wadding to prevent the ray flowers 

 from shrivelling. In drying plants there will doubtless arise many 

 occasions in which the foregoing rules for pressing must be modified. 

 In all such cases it should be remembered that the best methods are 

 those dictated by common sense. 



The Trees cxud Shrubs of Kentucky is the subject of a valuable 

 list just published by Miss Sadie F. Price. According to this, there 

 are 255 woody plants in Kentucky, of which 145 are trees, no are 

 shrubs and woody climbers, and 1 1 are introduced. 



The Southern Bluets {Houstonia serpyllifolia Michx.) was col- 

 lected in July last by Stewardson Brown and the writer in southwestern 

 Pennsylvania at an altitude of about 2,200 feet. This is believed to be 

 the most northern station known for this plant, the books crediting to 

 the Virginia mountains and southward. — C. F. Saunders, Philadelphia. 



