104 WILD FLOWER PRESERVATION 



Plants are most easily identified when fresh 

 and it is better to do it then if possible, but 

 flowers and other parts of pressed plants be- 

 come soft and take on their natural shapes 

 again if plunged for a few seconds into boiling 

 water, and can then be dissected and exam- 

 ined. If you are going to do this, you should 

 provide some extra material when pressing 

 your finds, so as to leave an undamaged speci- 

 men for your herbarium. 



How TO EXAMINE A PLANT. 



When identifying plants the flowers should 

 be carefully dissected, and every organ ex- 

 amined through the magnifying-glass and 

 compared with the plates and descriptions in 

 the Flora. You cannot really know a plant 

 until you have, done this. 



The Frontispiece will show you the various 

 stages in the examination of the Cuckoo 

 Flower (Cardamine pratensis) a very good 

 and typical example of the Cress Family. To 

 begin with, you have the entire plant, showing 

 its root (1) and the arrangement of its two 

 kinds of leaves, radical (springing directly 



