ON COLLECTING AND PRESERVING PLANTS xv 



thin portions of stem, etc., to the paper by means of ordinary pins, of course 

 placed horizontally. If gum be used it is best made of a mixture of gum Acacia 

 (gum Arabic) and gum Tragacanth, it being both clean to use and very adhesive. 

 In rare instances collections of plants are not mounted at all, but simply left 

 loose in folded sheets of paper. However, they are better more or less mounted, 

 and the paper should be a thick, white cartridge or some similar paper, which 

 will remain rigid and flat when one end is held in the hand. 



After the plants are mounted they should be labelled. The labels should be 

 about 3^ x 2 inches in size, of rather thin but good white paper so that they can 

 easily be gummed or pasted in a corner of the mount. In British collections it 

 is usual to have the name of the owner neatly printed at the head of the label 

 after the contracted word " Herb." (before which " Ex." can be written when 

 specimens are exchanged or given away). A broad space is then leit for the 

 name of the plant, and usually there are linee for the habitat and locality, and 

 half-lines for the Vice-County, collector's name, date, and number in the last 

 edition of the " London Catalogue of British Plants ". But for European her- 

 baria a simpler label is usually adopted, with the same simple line border, and 



either with the heading, " Herbarium Europaeum, A.B.C. ," or " Flora oi 



Switzerland," " Plants of Norway," or something of that sort. It saves time 

 when many specimens have been collected by the same person to have the 

 collector's name, preceded by " Coll." or " Legit," printed in small type at the 

 base of the label. 



It should have been mentioned that in mounting many specimens which do 

 not fill a sheet, it is important not to place them always in the centre, but rather 

 at one side if narrow, or in one corner if very small. This will not only tend to 

 keep the bundles of sheets fairly level, but allow several examples of the same 

 species from other districts or from other countries to be added later. The label 

 should, of course, be placed near the plant, and it is sometimes well to rule off 

 with a pencil line one specimen from another from a different district. In this 

 way it is quite easy to have four or five gatherings of the smallest plants with 

 different labels mounted on the same sheet. In starting a continental collection 

 young botanists are tempted to economize in paper and space by mounting 

 different species on the same sheet. This is greatly to be discouraged, for, apart 

 from the want of systematic order, the space may be needed on future occasions 

 for plants of the same species or variety. 



As previously suggested, it is an excellent plan to have a series of very small 

 envelopes, which can be home-made, in which to keep seeds, fruits, and some- 

 times individual specimens of the flowers or even some leaves, so that they can 

 be easily examined either with an ordinary pocket-lens or under the microscope. 

 Such envelopes should be gummed at the back to the sheet of mounting-paper, 

 preferably with the name of the plant and its collection number, if any. These 

 field numbers are quoted, and save much trouble and needless explanation in the 

 event of any subsequent correspondence on the specimens they refer to. In 

 collecting obscure forms and little-known varieties and all plants such as Hawk- 

 weeds, Willows, Roses, Sedges, etc., in any quantity, all of one gathering should 

 bear the same numeral. This is particularly the custom with collectors of sets 

 of rare plants in new or little-known countries, and these numbers are referred to 

 and quoted afterwards in books written on the flora of those countries. In work- 

 ing at any special genus or at the plants of one country, whether it be at Peters- 

 burg, Vienna, London, or New York, it is a great help to find a collector's 

 specimens all uniformly numbered thus. 



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