154 D. Praiii — Methods of preparing Botanical Specimens. [No. 3, 



herbarium specimens the estimation of the size of the flowers becomes 

 to some extent guess-work. 



Those who know Rangoon may recollect the practice of selling bottles 

 of flowers on the stairs of the Shwe-Dagon Pagoda. Unless, however, 

 their stay has been long enough, or their interest sufficiently great, to 

 have led them to notice that the flowers in these bottles are not fresh 

 but preserved, they may have supposed, as the writer did, that the 

 medium in which the flowers are kept is water. 



Everyone, however, has not been so void of curiosity. When 

 Assistant Surgeon C. L. Bose,* was in Rangoon in 1885, he was struck 

 by the length of time the flowers were kept, and brought some with 

 him to Calcutta for examination. Dr. Warden, then chemical examiner, 

 and Mr. Bose found on examining the fluid that it was a solution of 

 Alum. The solution is of no special strength ; the Burman, being 

 a happy-go-lucky individual puts some Alum into the water along with 

 the flowers and is not particular as to the amount. 



Mr. Bose brought only Ghampah petals ; some of these are in shape, 

 size, colour and consistence much as they were when taken from the tree 

 eight years ago. Here then we seem to have the means of overcoming 

 the difficulty, hitherto insoluble, of preserving the natural size in speci- 

 mens of Magnoliaceous flowers. 



Though only Champak was brought by Mr. Bose, the writer recollects 

 seeing Plumieria and Nymphsea flowers as well, and a bottle in which 

 Dr. Warden placed some green leaves with a 1% Alum solution at the 

 time he examined the Rangoon bottle has its contents very much as 

 they were when he put them in. There is, therefore, no reason why the 

 use of Alum solution should be confined to Magnolia flowers. 



It should be understood that the use of Alum solution is only sug- 

 gested as an auxiliary to the usual means of preserving specimens. Wet 

 preparations are to be avoided ; they are difficult to handle, difficult to 

 keep, difficult to house, and still more difficult to carry about. Bat 

 occasions arise when wet specimens are of the greatest moment as supple- 

 ments to dried ones, and the Burmese preservative has the advantages 

 over spirit of not discolouring the specimen or rendering it brittle. Most 

 important of all, one can carry Alum about as a solid and make a 

 solution when required. 



If the bottles are not carefully sealed the specimens do not keep. The 

 flowers immersed in the fluid do not suffer, but as the water evaporates 

 the flowers at the top get exposed to the air, decay, and fall in a flocculent 

 mass to the bottom. This flocculent matter keeps pushing up others 

 to undergo the same decomposition. But from a well-stoppered bottle — 



* Assistant to the Chemical Examiner to Government, Calcutta. 



