Fes. 1905. | BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 73 
accumulation of a pile of wild-flowers, dried and named.” 
“It is the mechanical habit of collecting for selfish ends, and 
Without any scientific purpose, that we wish to discourage.” 
From these and other passages in the report may be 
gathered the committee’s conception of herbaria; and in 
that conception there is little to commend them to favour or 
to justify the belief that they can be of real service as aids in 
the study of plants. 
But is this conception fair or right? Is it wise thus to 
limit the objects aimed at in the formation of a herbarium, 
and to discourage what has been found so helpful in the 
past? Has the herbarium ceased to deserve the high place 
assigned to it by Linneus in the words, “ Herbarium prestat 
omni Icone, necessarium omni Botanico”? Or may it not 
become useful in education and in research in a degree far 
beyond that attained in either. public or private herbaria ? 
Is there a natural antagonism between the study of plants as 
living things and the formation of a herbarium? May not 
the herbarium and the biological studies be found to assist 
eich other in a most helpful way? I believe that they can 
and should be so related ; and that it wouid be little less than 
a disaster to botanical investigation were the view to be 
accepted that the formation of herbaria is opposed in any 
respect to biological investigation, or to the true aims of 
botanical research. Herbaria are still necessary to every 
botanist—to the biologist not less than to the systematist. 
The question to be answered is not ‘“‘ Are herbaria a waste of 
time and labour—incumbrances to be thrown aside?” but 
“ How can herbaria be made most useful to botanical progress ?” 
To answer the latter question aright it is clearly needful to 
consider what should be the aim or aims in forming one; 
what it should illustrate; what it should contain; what 
methods of procuring and of preparing its contents are 
necessary or desirable; and what expenditure of time, labour, 
and material resources will probably be required to secure 
some fair measure of success. If the aim is merely to 
accumulate “a pile of wild-flowers, dried and named,” 
especially of rare species or varieties, for the mere love of 
possession, without ulterior thought of information to be 
gained from them, the gain to science is w7/, and there may 
have been harm done by the collecting of rare forms; but 
