Notes from my herbarium. III. 
WALTER DEANE. 
How I mount plants. 
Plants should be mounted for the herbarium with as much 
care as they are collected and pressed. The esthetic side 
should keep pace with the practical side of utility, and this 
can be done just as easily as not. It takes no more time to 
mount a plant well than to do it poorly. The suggestions I 
offer are the result of fourteen years of experience, during 
which I have constantly tried to do my work better and easier. 
They apply to the mounting of phanerogams and the pteri- 
dophytes. : 
I do all my work sitting at my table, pasting, mounting the 
plants and labels, putting the sheets under a weight from 
time to time, etc., without rising from my seat. In this way 
I frequently mount from fifty to sixty sheets in an evening, 
many of the plants being delicate grasses and the like. On 
a few occasions I have mounted as many as one hundred sheets. 
Everything must be carefully systematized. Close to my table 
on the left, within easy reach of my hand, is my mounting-box 
resting on a chair, with the hinged front of the box dropped 
down. This box is full, or partly so, of sheets with the plants, 
labels, paper-pockets and so on, lying on each sheet, as they 
are to be mounted. All this work of arranging has been pre- 
viously done, after the plants have been poisoned, labelled, 
etc. The inner dimensions of a mounting-box should be a 
little larger than those of a mounting sheet, in order that the 
sheets may be easily put in and withdrawn from the box. 
: Directly in front of me, on the left hand side of the table, 
is a board on which my mounting is done. On thisI lay a 
couple of driers such as I use to press plants. The space di- 
rectly to the right of this is devoted to the pasting 
of the plant. For this purpose I use sheets of a rather 
thin blotting paper, no smaller than a mounting sheet 
in size. I lay one of these sheets on the table, and I gener- 
ally lay under it two or three sheets of the white paper I use 
in drying plants. To the right of this is my glue-pot and 
brush, a pair of forceps with which to pick up the smaller 
£345] 
