OF THE FERNS AND FLOWERING PLANTS. 163 



bear, and they will be found safer guides than volumes of 

 advice and description. 



In arranging the specimen on the drying paper, the 

 appearance it had when living is the first thing to be 

 thought of; indeed, the main object in submitting it to a 

 press at all, is that it may retain its form permanently. 

 Before all things, therefore, care must be taken not to do 

 violence to the plant, or force any of its members into 

 positions which they could not possibly have held in their 

 living state ; otherwise an ill-shapen, distorted object, 

 which can never be restored to anything like its original 

 form, will be the inevitable result. For the same reason 

 no leaf or twig must be removed for the mere sake of pro- 

 ducing symmetry, or to indulge a false taste. The one 

 grand point to be kept in view — I cannot impress it too 

 strongly on the young student — to which everything else 

 must be made to yield, is the preservation of the natural 

 habit of the plant. If that is lost sight of, his herbarium 

 may form a pretty object in the eyes of superficial observers, 

 but it can never be a collection of plants by which science 

 will be promoted, or a knowledge of botany advanced. 



Of course there are times — and that not rarely — when it 

 is actually necessary to curtail certain portions of a plant, 

 in order that it may be prepared satisfactorily. Leave*, 

 for instance, are constantly in the way, and must be 

 removed to prevent them from concealing flower or fruit, 

 or from being squeezed irregularly against the stem. 



Whenever, then, amputation is unavoidable, let it be 

 performed in such a manner that there may be no mistake 

 about it — that, in a word, anyone may see at a glance 

 that leaves, twigs, &c. really have been removed. To this 

 end let the leaf, supposing a leaf to interfere with the due 

 disposition of a flower, be cut off, not quite down at its 

 junction with the stem, but a short distance up, so ab to 

 leave a good portion of the petiole adherent to. the plant ; 

 and so of a twig, or a flower-head, or any other part, that 

 must inevitably be sacrificed. But amputation had much 



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