[39J DIRECTIONS FOR COLLECTING PLANTS KNOWLTON. 



Large specimens, sucli as lichens on rocks, may be sometimes at- 

 tached directly to the sheet, but such are probably best kept in small 

 pasteboard boxes, and the whole fitted into the trays of a cabinet. A 

 very convenient box for such specimens can be made of the regular 

 herbarium sheet size and three or four inches deep, which will fit into 

 the compartments of the herbarium case. 



Algte and all plants of this character should have the sheets upon 

 which they are floated out glued to the regular herbarium sheets. 



The larger fleshy fungi (also seeds and fruits) can only be kept with 

 satisfaction in small pasteboard boxes in a cabinet, unless preserved in 

 alcohol. 



CARE OF DUPLICATES. 



Some botanists pay little attention to their duplicates; arrange them 

 in no definite order; keep them in parcels, each summer's collection by 

 itself, or in other unsystematized ways, and depend upon memory to 

 hunt out anything they may want to find. This is in a high degree rep- 

 rehensible, and really occasions great loss of time. Others arrange 

 them in the alphabetical order of the genera, which is much better, but 

 is not to be recommended. It is best to arrange them carefully, accord- 

 ing to the natural system, the same as the herbarium. 



How to label the cases of so shifting a mass has been a serious difficulty, 

 I have heard very few plans of doing this suggested, and I think nearly 

 all botanists leave them without labels, and depend upon memory to 

 start in wherever they think their plant may be. I will give my own 

 method, which has worked admirably, and which eminent botanists 

 have admired and expressed an intention to adopt. 



Strips of white paper, 19 inches in length, are cut of two widths, one 

 kind 2 inches wide, the other 1 inch. The former are used for genus 

 strips, the latter for species strips. Every genus is furnished with one 

 of the wider sort, and its name is written across one end, which projects 

 far enough in front to leave the name in full view, and when the doors 

 are closed this end bends down so as to present it clearly to the eye. 

 If the genus contains only one or two species, or even three, species strips 

 are not used, but for all genera represented in the duplicates by four or 

 more species, each species is also provided with a strip. Between the 

 genus strip and the first species a sheet of paper intervenes, so that the 

 two strips will not lie upon each other. Single sheets are alone used to 

 put duplicates on, and great facility is thus secured in handling them. 

 The plants occupying each partition are placed between large-sized 

 pasteboards, the upper one of which is thinner and more pliable than 

 the lower. This latter feature will be found a great improvement upon 

 the use of two stiff boards. 



