1 89 1.] Open Letters. 187 



OPEN LETTERS. 



A plea for better botanical specimens. 



An experience of five years in two of the large herbaria of this 

 country, in which I have handled all the specimens as they came in 

 from collectors all over the world, has confirmed my belief that too 

 many botanists place a greater stress on quantity than quality. The 

 distribution of C. G. Pringle's admirable specimens during the past 

 few years, has produced among the fortunate few of his subscribers a 

 change of opinion for the better; and the curators of herbaria, now 

 crowded to overflowing with inferior specimens, are throwing more 

 and more of the worthless material into the waste-basket. If exchang- 

 ing botanists would give and demand none but good, complete speci- 

 mens, the standard might be raised so that each addition to our 

 numerous herbaria would be one of permanent value, not to occupy 

 needed space until replaced by better specimens, some time in the 

 far future. 



A common fault is the breaking up of a single individual to make it 

 go all around. Better one perfect and complete specimen in one her- 

 barium, than many fragments in different places. Another common 

 fault is the sending, as a complete specimen, a single individual of the 

 smaller species. It betrays a small soul to ask that a single Ertgenta 

 bulbosa or Viola blanda shall count one in exchange. A fault in the 

 opposite direction is the preparing of specimens too large for the 

 herbarium sheet. I once mounted 200 species of grasses prepared by 

 a professional collector, and every specimen that was more than six- 

 teen inches tall, had to be moistened and pressed over. 



Many extensive collectors even yet work as if picking flowers for a 

 bouquet, in which the stem and radical leaves are not needed. 1 he 

 fruiting stage seems to pass unheeded by most collectors, unless they 

 eat the fruit instead of sending it in, as there is a great dearth of fruit 

 among the specimens and a corresponding demand for it by some of 

 our systematic botanists.— L. H. Dewey, Washington, D. C. 



Pachystima Canbyi in cultivation. 



I notice in the March number of the Gazette that mention is made 

 of the cultivation of Pachystima Canbyi in Germany. I have grown it 

 in my garden here since £875. I gathered it in S. W. Virginia in com- 

 pany with Mr. Howard Shriver in that year, and as it grew compara- 

 tively well under cuitivation I have kept it in my grounds since. It is 

 called locally " rat-stripper," from the readiness with which the bark 

 strips off the wood, leaving a long white tail, as it were. I have sent 

 many plants of it to various parts of Europe. The closely allied 



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