PEOCEEDINGS FOE 1894. XLVII 



Special Eecommendations. 



1. Tho recording and publishing of phenological observations in as many localities as possible, as 

 suggested in the quotation from the report of 1892-93 given above. 



2. The formation of a standard list of the flora of each locality, so that a report of tho number of 

 species known to be contained in it may be briefly given under, say, the following provisional heads: 



Dicotyledons, ; Monocotyledons (non-glumaceous), ; Glumales (grasses and sedges), ; 



Pteridophyta (ferns, horsetails and club-mosses), ; Bryophyta (mosses and liverworts), : 



other Cryptogams, , total species, The additions to the flora of any locality during the 



year may then be briefly reported thus: D., ; M., ; G., ; P., ; B., ; O. C, 



i T.Sp, 



3. The herbarium in the museum of tho Geological Department at Ottawa — the nucleus of which 

 is the private collection of Prof John Macoun — has been increased to many times its oi-iginal size 

 during tho past ten years. Prof Macoun or his assistants have collected in all tho provinces, and many 

 additions have been received from botanists working in various parts of the Dominion, so that the 

 herbarium now contains, with few exceptions, specimens of all plants known to occur in Canada. 

 Tho aim has been to procure at least one sheet of specimens fiom each jirovinco in which it is found 

 for evei-y species. In addition to this, all forms that differ in the slightest from the type have been 

 preserved ; so that of species of wide distribution there are in some cases as many as twent3'-five or 

 thirty sheets of specimens. The value of this is shown when the extreme eastern and western forms 

 of common species are compared. Those of the oast often appear to present good varietal di8"erences 

 from those of the west; but when the specimens from various other parts of the Dominion are com- 

 jjared with them, it is frequently found that they represent intermediate forms running into one 

 anothei-, — that though the extreme forms, when considered alone, might be taken to be separate 

 varieties, the intermediate forms show that this is not the case. The greatest value of such an 

 herbarium lies in its offering a ready means for the determination of doubtful specimens collected by 

 local hotanists. What may appear to them a new variety of a plant with which they are familiar 

 may prove to be only a form that is common elsewhere. It is important, therefore, that when 

 possible specimens of all divergent forms should be sent to the "national " herbarium. 



In order to encourage the formation of private and other herbaria, Professor Macoun has offered 

 to receive specimens from any locality and to give in exchange for them an equal number of the desi- 

 derata of the person or society sending them. The only proviso being that the specimens be fi'om 

 the vicinity in which the collector resides, and not from several parts of a province. To facilitate 

 such exchange, check-lists will be sent to all who may apply for them. All communications connected 

 with such exchange should be addressed to the 



CUEATOR OF THE HERBARIUM, 



Geological Survey Department, 

 Ottawa. 



Letters and parcels of specimens are transmitted to this address without postage, according to law. 



4. The place and date of every specimen should always accom23any it. If this label be lost the 

 specimen may be valueless. If the label should happen to go with the wrong specimen it is worse 

 than valueless. 



5. The most convenient manner of obtaining the determination of plants from the curator of the 

 Canadian herbarium or any other botanist, is to make an exact duplicate of the set, the specimens 

 being similarly numbered. The botanist determining the plants keeps the set sent him, and returns 

 simply a list of the names corresponding to each number. Great care must be taken, especially in 

 the case of the smaller Cryptogams, that one and the same species are in the duplicates. Mistakes 

 often occur from the indiscriminate division of a tuft of moss or lichen supposed to contain only one 

 species, while it may contain two or more, and even those in ditferei t proportions, in the suppo.sed 

 duplicate. 



