THE 



FLORICULTURAL CABINET, 



DECEMBER 1st, 1836. 



PART I. 

 ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



ARTICLE I. 



ON DRYING AND PRESERVING SPECIMENS OF PLANTS. 



BY PRIMULA SCOTICA. 



I have read in yonr Number for October, "A Lady's" directions 

 for preserving dried plants, and have one or two suggestions to offer 

 by way of improvement, should you think them worthy of insertion. 

 I always use blotting paper to dry the plants in, as it absorbs best; 

 if they are very succulent, I prefer the thick white kind. Instead of 

 wooden boards, I make use of millboards, as less clumsy, (one sheet 

 cut in two,) and two dozen of these will enable the drier to have a 

 great number of plants under press at once. Your correspondent 

 uses a very needless quantity of paper at once. Nearly all plants 

 require only two or three sheets, if they are laid in the innermost ; a 

 millboard slid placed between every two or three plants ; and at the 

 end of three days, if the papers are damp, the plants should be care- 

 fully taken out, and put in the same number of dry, smooth sheets. 

 If necessary, the papers should be changed in two or three days after 

 this, but most plants will be thoroughly dried in six days, some 

 sooner. My weights are laden, with handles, 1201bs., and 2101bs 

 each, and these weights answer better than heavier ones. The plants 

 should be dried, and kept in a dry air^ room, where there is no fire. 

 A plant should never be taken from under the weights till it is 

 quite stiff. I keep my duplicates in half sheets of blotting paper, 

 laving those of the same species between two loose sheets, and tying 

 up a number of these leaves and plants between two half sheets of 

 millboard. My herbanum is a large halfbound book, composed of 

 cartridge paper of the largest size, and between each leaf I have a 

 slip of cartridge paper bound in, the length of the page, so that when 

 the book is full, the edges close evenly. Each page is cut with four 

 VOL. IV. I i 



