Collecting Flowering Plants and Ferns. 5 



ing flower and fruit, as well as roots, when possible. Mature fruit is 

 especially important for identification in the families of Umbelliferae 

 and Compositae. Some trees, such as willows and oaks, flower before 

 the leaves are expanded. In such cases flowering specimens should 

 be collected, and the shrub or tree from which the}^ are taken should 

 be marked, so that the fruit and mature leaves may be secured later 

 from the same individual. 



Aquatic plants. — Many of the fine-leaved water plants, such as 

 pondweed (Potamogeton), bladclerworts, and milfoil, collapse en- 

 tirely if dried by the usual methods. Such plants should be rolled 



Fig. 2. — A specimen in a collecting sheet, showing the method of folding to fit the 

 sheet and the use of a slit strip of paper to hold a bent stem in position. 



up in very wet paper in the field and brought home in that condition. 

 They should then be placed in water and floated out on sheets of 

 white paper, which must be carefully drawn out of the water so that 

 the finer divisions of the leaves will not cohere. These white sheets 

 should then be placed in collecting papers and given the same treat- 

 ment as other specimens. 



Fleshy plants. — Many fleshy plants, such as purslane and orpines 

 or live-forevers, are very hard to dry properly, their moisture con- 

 tent allowing them to live for a long time in the press. They require 

 to be placed for a short time in boiling water, after which treatment 



