102 



drugs, or any other vegetable product, it is of the first importance 

 that there should be sent along with each example a dried 

 sspecimen of the leaves and flowers of the tree or plant affording 

 the same, marked distinctly with a corresponding number, so 

 that the source of the product may be scientifically determined. 

 Owing to the absence of such dried specimens accompanying the 

 timbers, drugs, fibres, &c., which have been sent to the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens, a large number of interesting articles have been 

 endered absolutely valueless from the scientific point of view. 



1 



III.— HERBARIUM DEPARTMENT. 



The ultimate object of collecting and preserving herbarium 

 specimens should be the advancement of our knowledge of the 

 existing forms of plant life and their distribution, and the 

 deposition of the specimens as permanent records and material 

 for comparison and re-examination. 



With that object before him the intending collector will 

 naturally consider what he should collect, and how the specimens 

 should be selected and preserved. 



His 



such as 



the nature of the country where the collecting is to be done and 

 the extent to which it has already been explored, the opportuni- 

 ties afforded to the collector by the mode of his travel, or the 

 circumstances of his residence. 



In working out a programme the collector will have to consult 

 the circumstances of his case with the advice of an expert, and 

 in carrying it out he will frequently have to fall back on his own 

 resourcefulness in modifying and adapting the hints with which 

 he has been supplied. 



A little consideration will show that even a well thought-out 

 programme and careful selection and preservation of the 

 specimens do not in themselves exhaust the conditions on Avhich 

 the value of a collection depends. The specimens will no doubt 

 carry a great deal of information with them, but many data 

 only known to the collector, and much observation only obtain- 

 able on the spot, must be left behind and will be lost if the 

 collector does not provide for their immediate registration. The 

 recording of such particulars as place and time of collecting, 

 circumstances of association, fading colours and vanishing 

 odoiirs, the habits of plants which are too large to be collected 

 entire, relations to the animal world, uses and so on, is generally 

 referred to as " labelling," but in so far aa it is frequently done 

 in a notebook — the labels only bearing the numbers which connect 

 the specimens with the entries— it will here be dealt with under 

 the heading "annotation." 



^ The following hints have therefore been grouped into the sec- 

 tions :—(l) The collection of specimens; (2) The selection of 

 material ; (3) Preparation and preservation ; (4) Annotation ; (5) 

 The gathering of the specimens in the field; and (6) Packing. 

 Each section has been prefaced by a general statement of the 

 guiding principles. 



