OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 7 



Directions for Collecting, Preparing, and Preserving Speci- 

 mens of Mosses 



For the benefit of those who may not be familiar with the 

 usual methods of collection and preservation of bryological 

 specimens the following notes may be of use: 



Specimens of Br y ales should be collected in fruit (ripe 

 sporophytes) as far as possible. Specimens of Sphagnum are 

 desirable in fruit, but determination is best made in this group 

 from the vegetative characters. Specimens of mosses when 

 collected should be placed at once in envelopes or other suit- 

 able paper pockets and the data of collection, especially 

 habitat, should be written upon the envelope. Many collec- 

 tors would prefer to number the envelope and under the cor- 

 responding number make note of the data in a note-book. Col- 

 lections may be carried home in a basket or regular tin collect- 

 ing case and, if carefully placed in the envelopes in the first 

 place, the specimens need not be taken out of the envelopes 

 but the envelopes should be placed between blotting papers 

 or newspapers and subjected to a slight weight and so placed 

 that they will soon dry. A few books or two or three bricks 

 are usually sufficient weight for drying a package of mosses. 

 Too much weight should be guarded against, as the habit of 

 the plant, i. e., the position assumed by leaves, branches, etc., 

 i^ often a great help in determining the species, and, if too 

 much weight is used in drying, the specimens will be so flat- 

 tened as to destroy these characters. 



When dry the specimens may be placed in paper pockets 

 made from a rectangular piece of paper by folding up the 

 lower part of the rectangle to within about one half-inch of 

 the upper edge and then folding down this half-inch flap over 

 the first flap. The two ends should now be folded backward 

 for about one half-inch each and the pocket is then com- 

 plete and ready for the reception of the moss. The regula- 

 tion method in most larger herbaria is to glue this pocket in 

 the middle of the back, midway between the two folded ends, 

 to a so-called "herbarium sheet" which is uniformly of white 

 stiff paper measuring 11% by 16% inches. For small private 

 collections smaller sizes are sometimes used. On the lower 

 right-hand corner of this sheet is written the name of the 

 species, and the number of specimens which such a sheet will 

 accommodate is, of course, restricted only by the space occupied 

 by the pockets. The label for each specimen should be fast- 

 ened to the narrow (half-inch) flap at the upper edge of the 

 pocket and should always contain the name of the species, the 

 exact locality and habitat of the specimen, the name of the 



