ON COLLECTING AND PRESERVING PLANTS. 1 



A FEW hints on how to collect plants and dry and mount them for an herbarium 

 may be useful to some readers, particularly as the subject is discussed either 

 very briefly or not at all in most botanical books. 



Plants can be collected and preserved on the Riviera, in the Alps, or any extra- 

 tropical country, much in the same way as in the British Isles. Specimens are 

 usually put into a japanned or painted tin, commonly called a vasculum ; while 

 an ordinary large sponge-bag would in the mountains be found a useful adjunct 

 or alternative, for it can easily be carried in the ruck-sack when on mountain 

 expeditions, and is more convenient than a tin. Sponge-bags are light and 

 fairly waterproof, and for many small fleshy plants, such as Saxifrages and 

 Sempervivums, they are both convenient and handy. Some botanists, however, 

 prefer to take into the field a light portfolio, furnished with leather straps and 

 sheets of drying-paper, so that the plants and particularly the more delicate 

 ones, and those, like Veronicas, whose blossoms drop easily, can be put straight 

 into paper, and sorted and rearranged in a proper press on returning to the 

 house. We do not, however, much recommend the use of such a portable 

 press, especially as it wastes time and is quite useless in wet or windy weather. 



Many of the tins carried by young botanists are bought ready-made, and are 

 too short. For ordinary purposes the tin should be about sixteen inches long, seven 

 or eight inches wide, and about two and a half or three inches deep. It should 

 have rounded edges, and the opening, which is on the broad side, should be 

 large enough to admit average specimens without difficulty or needless doubling. 

 The cover to the opening is attached by a couple of hinges, and it fastens at 

 the side by a sliding wire bolt. If this should work loose and there be danger 

 of the lid falling open when carried, the bolt can be bent the least bit out of the 

 straight and it will then hold firmly. The plant-tin is most conveniently carried 

 from the shoulders by a leather strap ; but sometimes it has a thick wire handle 

 at the top, which is convenient on occasion. On hot days the vasculum should 

 be kept as much as possible out of the sun, for the metal gets very hot if 

 exposed to brilliant sunshine. To combat this difficulty, or rather to prevent its 

 consequences, the writer often lays the first delicate specimens in a bed of fresh 

 green leaves placed in the tin. If necessary these can be removed as the tin 

 gets too full. 



When a sponge-bag is not carried, it is often an advantage to have a 

 smaller tin, such as is sometimes called a sandwich-tin, which will go within the 

 coat-pocket. Small and delicate specimens can thus be carried, or it can be 

 used for wet or dirty roots which might damage delicate flowers in the larger box. 



1 Reprinted, with slight alterations, from the author's "Sub- Alpine Plants," 

 by permission of Messrs. George Routledge & Sons, Ltd. 



