SEA WEED, ETC., AS ACCESSORIES IN MOUNTING 393 



for mounting are not many in number. The sea-holly, 

 Eryngium maritimum, and a few other similarly harsh-leaved 

 plants dry well, and also some sedges and rushes and number- 

 less stunted grasses, but the Maram grass, Ammophila arundi- 

 nacea, so lovely with its blue-green spears, and so suggestive of 

 the sea, twists and curls into any other shape than its own, and so 

 must be modelled, as likewise the beautiful yellow sea-poppy, 

 Glaucium flavum, the handsome sea-rocket, Cakile maritinia, 

 and a host of other things. Of truly marine plants — " Sea- 

 weeds " — there is, indeed, a wealth, and very lovely they are, 

 but with the exception of a very few which do not dry very 

 satisfactorily for mounting purposes, they are not useful. The 

 great oar-weeds, bladder-wracks, and other large weeds are 

 most valuable, but cannot be dried, and so until lately were not 

 used, or, if used, were wetted, glued, and varnished, but always 

 looked what they were^dried weeds without transparency or 

 fulness. In the Leicester Museum, the first departure which 

 gave a better result was the imitation of some of these by tissue- 

 paper, coloured or stained and varnished, but this has since 

 given way to a process which gives the exact texture, quality, 

 and transparency, and in some cases the colour, namely, the 

 casting of the bladder-wracks and other fucoids, and their repro- 

 duction in the glue-compositions. 



The casting of such objects will be found quite simple 

 after the somewhat complicated processes before described in 

 these pages. First the, say, bladder-wrack is well wetted, and 

 laid out as flat as may be on a bed of sand, and, where any 

 curves or folds are naturally present, sand is packed under 

 them with any of the tools Nos. 29 to 36, as explained for 

 leaf-modelling (see p. 309). Where there is any obstinate 

 tendency to rise up, pins with their heads cut off are used to 

 keep the plant down, and the casting-box being built around 

 the weed, plaster is poured on in the usual manner. When the 



