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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



home in it for study and for 

 photography. 



Should flowers be collected 

 for an herbarium only, and the 

 collector has no idea of photo- 

 graphing them, they may be 

 conveniently carried from the 

 field by simply placing them 

 carefully between the leaves of 

 good-sized magazines. Be very 

 sure to see well to it that the 

 chief parts of the flower its 

 stem, leaves, and other struc- 

 tures are properly displayed 

 for study when the plant is 

 placed in the folio holder for 

 the herbarium. The process 

 has already been described by 

 the writer in the pages of 

 American Forestry, a year or 

 more ago. 



As to the collecting of such 

 insects as one may secure on 



THE DISTRICT BANKS OK THE POTOMAC 



Fig. 3. This view is just above Chain Bridge and looking up the river. 

 During unusual floods the water covers everything here in sight, save 

 the timbered hills. 



greater certainly than the famous Indian pipe or ghost 

 plant, of which an excellent illustration is given in Fig- 

 ure 7. This plant is especially conspicuous when one 

 comes across it on a cloudy day and it has appeared in 

 very dark soil, the latter being so banked as to give the 

 plant a black background, as we see it in the figure. In 

 some parts of the District, Indian pipe is fairly abundant 

 that is, one may come to a place where some eight or a 

 dozen plants are scattered over an area of twenty square 

 feet ; but, again, one may travel through the woods for 

 miles and not see another specimen of it. The same may 

 be said of the false beechdrops and one or two other para- 

 sitic plants. Such plants as these are quite difficult to 

 safely carry back to the studio for the purpose of pho- 

 tography ; still it may be successfully accomplished if 

 great care is taken with the specimen. One should have 

 along with one's collecting kit a good, big knife or a 

 small trowel with which to take up the entire plant, 

 leaving a generous supply of earth about its roots. Dis- 

 turb the setting of the plant as little as possible, and 

 consign the entire thing either to a good-sized tin can or 

 to a collecting basket of the proper shape. Very often, 

 everything else being equal, one can secure a far better 

 negative of such a subject in the studio than can be 

 obtained of the plant where it is found ; for in the first 

 instance both light and the movement of the air is com- 

 pletely under control. Many hardy plants travel well to 

 the home from the nearby collecting ground simply rolled 

 in a newspaper cone. Perhaps one of the best carriers 

 is the regulation cylindrical botanical carrying case, 

 which likewise has the advantage that many insects, small 

 snakes, toads, and frogs, and so on, may also be taken 



VIRGINIA SHORES OF THE POTOMAC RIVER, IMMEDIATELY 

 BELOW CHAIN BRIDGE 



Fig. 4. Opposite this point the District areas are low and very rocky, 

 considerable timber occurring well back from the banks. 



