phenolics in the leaf less, but it is not a good preservative 
because of its lack of fungicidal or bacteriocidal properties. 
Therefore, care should be taken when using tropical herbarium 
material, since, in many cases, the nature of their treatment 
after collection is unknown. 
On the basis of these results, ways of treating of Jessenia 
Bataua for subsequent chemical analysis can be rated as fol- 
lows: (Table 4; highest rating is 1) 
TABLE 4 
Treatment Rating 
Sun dried | 
Herbarium dried 
Water 2 
95% Ethanol 3 
White rum : 
Formalin-water 1:1 4 
Formalin 
FAA 5 
Based on our preliminary experiments, the following sug- 
gestions can be made: 
First: All herbarium material should be plainly marked on 
the label as to whether it has been chemically treated 
in the field and if so for how long and in what way. If 
specimens have been treated they are occasionally 
so marked, but rarely is it indicated that specimens 
were merely sun dried or herbarium dried. This lack 
of information reduces the value of these specimens 
as potentially useful samples for chemical study. 
Second: With the increasing use of chemotaxonomy as one of 
the tools for systematics, at least 10 gms. and prefer- 
ably 50 gms. of leaf material (or flowering material, 
262 
