34 SUB-ALPINE PLANTS 



sometimes adopted on the Continent is to .attach the 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 J 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 left for the name of the plant, and usually there are lines 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 herbaria a simpler label is 

 usually adopted, with the same simple line border, and either 

 with the heading ' Herbarium Europaeum, A. B.C. -' or ' Flora 

 of 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 smaller Alpine plants with different labels mounted 

 on the same sheet. In starting a continental collection young 

 botanists are tempted to economise in paper and space by mounting 

 different species on the same sheet. This is greatly to be dis- 

 couraged, 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 sometimes individual specimens of the flowers 

 or even some leaves, so that they can be easily examined either 



