104 



useful, but it should be more specialised and concentrated, vSO 

 that tbe results obtained can be compared and co-ordinated. 



5. In little-knoic n districts of otherwise ivell-ea'pJored countries 

 general collecting will still be useful, although it cannot be 

 exhaustive. Attention sliould be directed mainly to the less 

 frequent and less conspicuous plants, Otlierwise work as in 



o 



maj^ take its place. 



6. In little'-e.vploTed or unexplored countries collecting should, 

 in the first place, aim at all that appears as a prominent feature 

 in tlie vegetation. Any time available beyond that might be 

 given to general or specialised collecting, according to circum- 



stances. 



C' — // travelling rapidly and with little time^ or only odd 



intervals available. 



i 



. Collecting in ivell-cicplored' districts will not be of any par- 

 ticular value. 



8. In little-explored or unexplored countries^ collectors, even 

 if working quite casually, may find a rich field, but some sort of 

 method should be followed, and it will certainly enhance the 

 value if, for instance, attention be concentrated on the most 

 marked plants at hand, on trees and shrubs, on gregarious species, 

 on field crops, and so on. * 



D. — Outposts of vegetation, 



9. At extreme altitmles or latitudes, or in small uninhahited 

 islands and oases, which are widely separated from land covered 

 with vegetation, every kind of plant, phanerogamic or crypto- 

 gamic, should be collected, even though the specimens procur- 

 able may not bear organs of reproduction. 



II. The Selectiox or Material. 



It is hardly necessary to point out that a specimen, in order 

 to be of any value as an object of study, or as a record, must 

 be in a state which permits us either to determine it— that 

 is, to assign it to some known species^ or to exclude it posi- 

 tively from all the species known to us — in which case it will 

 have to be described as new. As the classification of plants rests 

 in the first place on the organs of reproduction, flowers and 

 fruits, but pre-eminenth^ the former among the higher plants, 

 and spores and spore-carriers among the lower plants, must be 

 collected. It is true that the vegetative organs, especially the 

 leaves, of many plants are so specialised that they alone may 

 enable the expert to name the plant, but the non-expert collector 

 will never be in the position to know when this may be the case. 

 Collecting barren specimens amounts, therefore, generally speak- 

 ing, to a waste of the time of the collector as well as of the expert. 

 Yet there are exceptions when it is justifiable, as in the case of 

 plants of great prominence in the vegetation of more or less new 

 countries, of very special biological or economic interest, or such 

 as have been described above as outposts of plant life. 



Although classification rests primarily on the organs of repro- 

 duction, the vegetative parts mixst not be neglected. They fre- 



