November 10, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



669 



poses of the collector if he confines his field 

 work to special groups of plants. A label, if 

 made too small, will interfere with the proper 

 handling of mounted herbarium specimens if 

 it is attached where it should be placed, that is, 

 at the upper left-hand corner of the herbarium 

 sheet. If made too large and complex too 

 much time is involved in properly filling it 

 out. The label now used in the Philippines 

 assumed its present form largely because much 

 of the field work of necessity must be carried 

 on by men with little botanical training. To 

 an inexperienced collector, then, a field label 

 serves as an indicator as to the data that is of 

 the most value, and the data that should be 

 recorded in order that the specimen when 

 finally mounted, shall present as many facts as 

 possible about the plant that are not shown by 

 the dried specimen itself. 



I know of no serious objection to the use of 

 field labels, and by their use an enormous mass 

 of most valuable information can be recorded 

 in such form that it will be available to other 

 botanists than the collector, data that is not 

 now being recorded at all, or if recorded is, 

 except in special cases, never attached to the 

 mounted herbarium sheets. From long per- 

 sonal experience with field labels, and judging 

 from the experience of many others who have 

 used them in the Philippines, it is confidently 

 prophesied that the average collector or botan- 

 ist who adopts a logical compact form for re- 

 cording his notes on field labels, and who once 

 fully appreciates the advantages and simplicity 

 of the system, will never revert to the now al- 

 most universal and decidedly impracticable 

 method of recording notes on the specimen 

 sheets or in a notebook. 



Objections that have been offered to the use 

 of field labels are not especially valid. In 

 practise the size adopted in the Philippines 

 will not be found to be too great; it is approxi- 

 mately the size of generally used pocket note- 

 books; it takes up little space on the mounted 

 sheet, and if properly placed does not in the 

 least obscure the mounted specimen, or inter- 

 fere with the handling of the herbarium 

 sheets. Scanty or copious notes may be taken 

 at the discretion of the collector. A specially 



modified form may be adopted for special 

 groups of plants, such as ferns, lichens, fungi, 

 grasses, etc., or for special types of herbaria, 

 such as dendrological collections, agricultural 

 or horticultural plants, etc. The field label is 

 not too complex, and the printed form can be 

 filled out much more rapidly than can a simi- 

 lar amount of data be recorded on a blank 

 page. Under all but the most abnormal field 

 conditions the label can readily be filled out 

 when the plant is collected, or soon after the 

 specimens are placed in press and before the 

 collector's conception of the plant has become 

 dim. To the objection that the labels can not 

 properly be filled out when one is heated and 

 perspiring from field work, I can merely point 

 to the 40,000 specimens in the Javan collec- 

 tions of Koorders, and nearly twice this num- 

 ber in the Philippine herbarium, all of which 

 were filled out in the field in tropical and not 

 in temperate regions, and often under the 

 most adverse climatic conditions. 



If it is considered desirable the labels can 

 be numbered serially before commencing field 

 work, thus avoiding the danger of duplicating 

 or of skipping numbers. In all cases, however, 

 the field label should be placed with the speci- 

 men it describes in press, and should remain 

 with the specimen under all circumstances and 

 through all processes until the mounted sheet 

 is distributed into the herbarium. In practise 

 it has been found much more convenient to 

 have the labels perforated at the top, that they 

 may readily be removed, and bound into note- 

 book form, 100 labels to a book. It sometimes 

 happens that it is desirable that the collector 

 retain his notes in serial form. This is very 

 readily accomplished by utilizing a carbon 

 paper and making two copies of the label, one 

 to be removed from the book and placed with 

 the specimen, one to be retained in the book in 

 its serial place; the original label may be 

 white, and the duplicate on pink or yellow 

 paper. 



The proper place for the field label on the 

 mounted herbarium sheet is in the upper left- 

 hand comer. Here it interferes less with the 

 mounted specimen than in any other position 

 and causes the least trouble in handling the 



