332 ] The Fascination of Flowers 



as red trillium, violet, and wild geranium, if you take along a 

 generous amount of earth. As a matter of fact, many commercial 

 growers specialize in quite rare plants; you can obtain the wild- 

 flowers in this way when it is not feasible to take them from their 

 native growing places. 



How to Press and Mount Plants 



Pressing wildflowers is still another way in which children can 

 get pleasure from them. They can also have a world of fun arrang- 

 ing the flowers in attractive groupings and framing them as wall 

 pictures. You will again want to stress to youngsters, before they 

 do any picking, that only plants that are plentiful should be taken. 

 It is well for children to make a habit of asking their parents about 

 protected wildflowers before doing any picking. The parents can 

 then check conservation laws with local authorities. 



Techniques for Pressing Flowers: When you collect plants for 

 pressing, keep them damp until you are ready to place them under 

 pressure. You can manage this by taking a few damp newspapers 

 on a collecting trip and carrying the plants between the pages. 

 For ease of handling, you can roll up the papers not too tightly, 

 however, or the leaves may crack. 



When you are ready for pressing, place a piece of newspaper 

 about twelve by eighteen inches on the floor, and lay plants or 

 flowers on top of it. As you may want to frame them later on, 

 take care to arrange petals, and leaves in natural positions. A 

 violet, for example, usually looks more natural if pressed in pro- 

 file. A few buds with the full-bloom flower and some leaves make a 

 complete story and an interesting composition. Make sure that no 

 plants overlap during the pressing. 



How to Dry Out Plant Moisture: Now that you have laid out the 

 plants on newspaper, cover this arrangement with a layer of news- 

 paper equal in thickness to the thickest part of the plant or plants 

 below. Add layers of plants and paper until your entire collection 

 is taken care of. Over this pile, place a board or other flat object 

 equal in size to the newspaper, and on top of this put weights 



