20 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



al] the branchlets lie cuts from one bush, or to all the smaller 

 plants which he collects from one cluster growing at one spot, 

 f.nd apparently then exactly the same. A good collector, who 

 meditates distribution, gets a sufficient quantity of each number 

 and distributes it, named or unnamed, but carefully unmixed. 

 Such numbers are the sets of Maudon, Balansa, or Schweinf urth ; 

 and they are invaluable for citation and in the herbarium. In 

 the case of new or critical species, if we have a number which 

 the author cites, we can without delay locate the plant in the 

 herbarium ; or if we are working up the group, we get a certain 

 "type" which we can compare with its description; one such 

 " good " number will often save hours of labour by giving a sure 

 starting-point whence one may proceed to consider the allied 

 forms. 



In the second method of numbering adopted by collectors, 

 the collector brings all the material he is about to distribute 

 together — it may be from a small or from a considerable area ; 

 he then sorts it into species, mostly by hand and eye, and affixes 

 a number to each "species." He then usually thoroughly mixes 

 the heap under each number (to illustrate perhaps the range o£ 

 form uuder his species), and then distributes " sets " of his 

 numbers. 



I cannot adequately describe the labour, the confusion, the 

 disputes that have arisen from this system of distribution. If a 

 collector mixes a few plants accidentally — a rose with a buttercup 

 — no harm is done. But when he mixes all the Carex vulgaris, 

 Fries, that he has got between the Pyrenees and Bohemia before 

 he distributes his mixture, or all the jlieracium sylvaticum, Smith, 

 he has collected in Switzerland, he prepares infinite labour and 

 difficulty for others. Wallich mixed plants (under one number 

 and one name) collected from distant localities ; it may be seen 

 in our Council-Eoom, for example, in his nn. 784, 785, species of 

 Didymocarpus, that it required all the acuteness of E. Brown 

 to disentangle the species. [Wallich, however, kept his different 

 collections separate by the letters A, B, C, &c., added to one 

 number. But the different collections A, B, C, &c., are now 

 mixed in the pasting down ; and where letters B, D, &c., have 

 been scratched in faint pencil against the plants, they are not 

 infrequently wrong.] 



It is remarkable that the great foreign collectors in Asia, 

 Africa, and America usually number their plants as collected : it 

 is the European collections that are so frequently mixed before 

 distribution — so frequently, indeed, that I find more difficulty in 

 defining the area of a well-known European species than of an 

 American. In herbaria I find but a small percentage of European 

 sheets which ha\^e the name of the collector, the date and place 

 of collection, and the field number. European plants too, not 

 rarely, are without any collector's number at all ; they have a 



