CHAPTER V. 



HOW TO DRY PLANTS. 



Specimens which are to be dried, so that they may be 

 kept in a Herbarium and referred to or examined at a 

 future time, ought not to be gathered at random, but should 

 be selected as average representatives of their species, unless 

 they be designed to show some departure from the typical 

 form. If herbaceous plants, they ought, if possible, to be 

 taken up, when in flower, by the root, and the root should 

 be pressed, if not too large, along with the rest. If the 

 radical leaves be withered at the time of flowering, another 

 specimen should be gathered at an earlier season to show 

 them, as the radical leaves are often very different in form 

 from those of the stem. Besides expanded flowers, the bud 

 and ripe fruit should be shown ; and if these cannot be 

 had upon' a single specimen, other examples should be 

 collected, to show the plant in its difterent states. A strong 

 knife or small trowel will be found useful to dig up the 

 specimens. 



The specimens should not be allowed to wither before 

 reaching home. They may either be carried in a tin box, 

 or loosely spread between sheets of paper in a portfolio. 

 Fig. 240 shows a collecting portfolio, which may be made 

 of two pieces of pasteboard sixteen inches long by ten 



