136 COLLECTORS’ NUMBERS. 
The best way to commence may be perhaps to show first how not 
to do it right. 
The worst of all plans is that adopted by Wallich and by many 
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from various localities is got together; it is then sorted into genera, 
then into species; all the material of one (supposed or estimated) 
Species is well mixed, and then issued under one number. a 
sheet of this kind has to be named, it is necessary to examine every 
scrap on the sheet (a tedious waste of time). If it happens that 
several species (or varieties, or even “‘forms”) are mixed under the 
number, it is useless for citation. The numbers of Wallich, as to 
the “type” sheet in his large-paper collection, are cited sometimes 
in the Flora of British India; but the chief value of such citations 
is to direct a person in London where to go to see the “type” of 
the species described. It is not at all safe to name Wallich’s sheets 
at Calcutta from such citations. 
Another favourite plan with collectors since the days of Sieber 
is to commence a fresh numbering from No. 1 on every excursion. 
We thus get a specimen numbered (instead of 8875, say) ‘‘ Iter 
Madagascarense Secundum, series 8, n. 94.” The effect of this is 
that so long a number is rarely worth citation; our monographs 
have become laboured even with the citing of simple numbers, and 
confusion. It is where externally 
similar plants have been sorted together and then numbered alike 
that the mischief has been done. 
It would be tedious to enumerate the varied plans of authors for 
making their field-numbers useless; some use fractional numbers— 
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private index to genera, while the denominator may represent the 
number of the species in the genus, or in some private list of the 
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name ; (2) number; (8) where collected. Many of the plants do 
not pretend to this minimum of information—they are ticketed, 
“Flora of Germany and France, second distribution of Meyer, 
n. 2171,” Here there is no attempt at deception; it is told one 
