230 TYPES OF BRITISH PLANTS 
flowers. Almost all sorts of country have their special 
glories, but the greatest variety is to be found in four 
places: marshes, especially those which have also a 
definite slow-running stream through them; the skirts 
and the ridings of woods; anything in the way of a 
ruin, from a castle to a cowshed; and a fallow field. 
The last is not very common, even in these days of agri- 
cultural depression, but is very profitable. Disused chalk- 
pits or gravel-pits and railway cuttings are by no means 
to be despised. You may reckon 250-300 a very good 
score for any district in one year, if you do not include 
grasses, but they are well worth the trouble of making 
out, and should not be neglected. 
The next point is, of course, to discover what you have 
captured, and Johns’ Flowers of the Field, backed up in 
difficult cases by Bentham and Hooker, should solve 
almost all your problems. When these fail, one can 
generally find some enthusiastic amateur in the neigh- 
bourhood who has made plant-hunting his hobby, and 
is always glad to help. 
Remember, for one thing, always to gather a root-leaf 
as well as a stem-leaf, for they often differ greatly; 
and, for another, to get everything into water at once 
upon your return, for a withered flower is very hard 
to recognise. Do not be content with simply lumping 
a doubtful individual into a general class of “trefoil,” 
“parsley,” or “hawkweed,” but thrash the matter out to 
the very end, 
Next, as to their preservation. The apparatus is simple. 
A dozen sheets of good blotting-paper, which must be 
changed if they get damp or stained, a couple of boards 
and a band to go round the whole are all that is necessary. 
An ordinary linen press is useful to put the whole thing 
