November 10, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



665 



supplying material on which the descriptions 

 of new species may be based, is in determining 

 the geographic distribution of various species, 

 their dates of flowering and fruiting, and 

 their collectors. What a relatively small re- 

 turn for the time, labor and money expended 

 in building up any large herbarium ! Perhaps 

 the average curator is too conservative, yet 

 conservatism carried to the point of not add- 

 ing any data to the average mounted her- 

 barium specimen other than the conventional 

 Latin name, geographic locality, collector and 

 date of collection of the plant, is absurd. Tet 

 any one who has had long experience in most 

 herbaria will fully realize that collection after 

 collection received with data in some form 

 about the specimens themselves, is often even- 

 tually distributed into the herbarium with most 

 or all of the special data eliminated or at least 

 very greatly abbreviated. 



Perhaps the weakest point in all large her- 

 baria is the lack of special data with the 

 mounted specimens. The average herbarium, 

 no matter how large or where located, will 

 yield comparatively little information about 

 the plants themselves other than the data that 

 can be determined from the dried specimens 

 and the conventional data usually recorded. 

 As to the individual species, habit, habitat, 

 altitudinal range, size, except for small plants, 

 relative abundance, odor when fresh, color 

 and odor of the flowers, special characters of 

 the fruits not shown by dried specimens, the 

 presence or absence of milky juice, gums or 

 resins, vernacular names, economic uses, etc., 

 can not be determined from a very high per- 

 centage of all extant herbarium material, 

 chiefly because the data covering these points 

 are not recorded by the average collector or 

 botanist, or if recorded are not attached to the 

 mounted herbarium specimen in average her- 

 barium practise. 



No botanist, from field work, can intimately 

 learn the special characters of more than a few 

 thousand species of plants, and unless he re- 

 cords special data in some form, he will fre- 

 quently find his memory at fault regarding 

 this or that character of this or that species. 

 The average herbarium will give him little or 



no assistance, as so few specimens present any 

 special data regarding the plants themselves. 

 This fault in current herbarium practise is ap- 

 parently reflected in some of our modern man- 

 uals, where, for some species, the size of the 

 plant is not given at all, or is inaccurately 

 given, the color of the flowers ignored, and 

 other data that would be of distinct value to 

 the field botanist, are frequently wanting. It is 

 very probable that many of the vernacular 

 names cited in our manuals are not now in use 

 in the United States except as they are learned 

 from the manuals themselves, that is, book 

 names, and undoubtedly hundreds of vernac- 

 ular names in more or less common use are 

 unrecorded. Scores of " common names " have 

 no existence except in print, being often merely 

 a translation of the Latin name. How much 

 better it would be to cite an actually used ver- 

 nacular name, even if known only in a limited 

 region, than to coin a common name by the 

 simple process of translating the Latin one, 

 and thus establishing in print a name that no- 

 body ever uses. Tet probably no herbarium in 

 the United States gives any appreciable 

 amount of data as to vernacular names actu- 

 ally in use for the simple reason that botanists 

 and collectors have neglected to record such 

 names with the specimens. 



A herbarium to be of the greatest service 

 should present not only the geographic range 

 of the various species, their period of flower- 

 ing and fruiting, and when and by whom col- 

 lected, but also the essential data regarding 

 the individual plants themselves indicated 

 above. In other words a properly prepared 

 herbarium should be a card index to the vari- 

 ous aspects of the species represented by dried 

 specimens, their economic uses, vernacular 

 names, and all possible information regarding 

 the individual plants themselves that the dried 

 specimens and usually recorded conventional 

 data do not show. 



The local botanist or collector may, and 

 often does, record copious notes in various 

 types of notebooks, but usually such notes are 

 available only to himself, never become actu- 

 ally attached to his herbarium specimens, and 

 ultimately become lost. If the collector does 



